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THE 


SELECT WORKS 


THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D, LLD. 


VOL. IL, 
SERMONS. 


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ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS. 


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V.2 CONTENTS 


SERMON I. 
ON THE PATERNAL CHARACTER OF GOD. 


“ It ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shui 
your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him ?’—Marv. vii. ll. . 7 


’ 


ms 
[~ SERMON II. 
THE STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. 


“ At that time ye were without Christ, being aliensfrom the commonwealth of Israel, and stran- 
gers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”—Epu. ii. 12. 13 


SERMON III. 
THE GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD. 
‘Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God.”—Romans xi. 22. . : ; we St 


SERMON IV. 
SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. 
“t And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear.” — 


1 Peter iv.18. . ees lee 
SERMON V. 
ON THE SPIRIT’S STRIVING WITH MAN. 
“ And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man.”—GeEn. vi. 3... - on 
’ 
SERMON VI. 
ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 
“ There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it."—1 Joun v. 16. ; 43 


SERMON VII. 
THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. 


“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; 
and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and shalt honour him, not 
doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then 
snalt thou delight thyself in the Lord: and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of 
the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord 


ath spoken it.”—Isatau lvili. 13,14... : 51 
SERMON VIII. 
THE ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. 
“Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.—Gaz. iv. 10. : ; ‘ : 59 


SERMON IX. 


THE ACCOMMODATING SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY TO THE SCRUPLES OF THE WEAK. 
“Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world stand- 
eth, lest I make my brother to offend.”—1 Cor. vill. 13. 2. ©. «© . «© « « 


611793 


Iv CONTENTS. 


SERMON X. 


ON THE AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 


“Be ye not unequally yoxed together with unbelievers ; for what fellowship hath righteous- 
ness with unrighteousness ? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what con- 
cord hath Christ with Belial ? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel 2? And what 
agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as 
God hath said, 1 will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they 
shall be my people.’ 2 Cor. vi. 14—16. . ; . 


SERMON XI. 


ON CHRISTIAN CONVERSATION. 


“Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be 
alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ize may know “how ye ought to answer every 
man.”—Co.ossiAns iv. 5, 6. : . : ; : ; : 


SERMON XII. 


ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. 
‘Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”—Rom. xiv. 5. 


SERMON XIII. 


OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 
‘For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap pet ee but he that sowetn to 


the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.” —GAL. vi. 8. 
° SERMON XIV. 
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 
‘For I determined not to know ay pune ae saa save Jesus Christ, and him cruci- 
fied.”—1 Cor. ii. 2. ; : 
SERMON XV. 


DANGER OF NEGLECTING THE GOSPEL. 
‘‘ How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation.” —HEB. ii. 3. 


SERMON XVI. 


THE RELATION OF THE LAW TO THE GOSPEL. 
“ For Christ is the end of ine law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” —Romans x. 4. 
‘ Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a ass heart, and of a good conscience 
and of faith unfeigned.”—1 T1m. i. 5. ; . : 
SERMON XVII. 


ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. 
“ Testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, EACBEL? towards God, and faith to- 
wards our Lord Jesus Christ.—Acts xx. 2]. : 


SERMON XVIII. 


THE IMMEDIATE REWARD OF OBEDIENCE. 
‘In keeping of them there is great reward.—PsaLM xix. 11. 


SERMON XIX. 


THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 


“‘ Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the nie 
of the saints in light.—Cot. i. 12. ; ; : : E : : : 


SERMON XxX. 


THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SINGLENESS OF AIM AND SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT. 


“ The light of the body is the SI? if therefore thine eve be eingle etry whole bogs a. be 
full of light. —Marr. vi. 22. 


SERMON XXI. 
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 


“ Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven? This same 
Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen 
him go into Heaven—Aoctsi.tl. . «9 «© «© « « « ‘ i 


84 


91 


109 


114 


120 


126 


134 


140 


144 


150 


CONTENTS. v 


SERMON XXII. 


GOD IS LOVE. 
“God is love.’—Joun iv. 16. : é 


SERMON XXIII. 
FEAR OF TERROR AND FEAR OF REVERENCE. 
‘‘ Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.,—1 Petsri.17.. pets Ta ate 166 
Z ss 
SERMON XXIV. 
IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. 


“Who hath abolished death, and brought life and gh strane, M to fight by the geepel. ane 
2Tavi iO. . 174 


SERMON XXV. 
THE BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 
2 But this I say, brethren, the time is short.”—1 Cor. vii. 29. eae olen een way 1B 


SERMON XXVI. 


THE FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. 
“ For Biey that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.”—Hes. xi. 14. . 191 


SERMON XXVII. : 
ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE INCIPIENT DUTIES, AND THE SUBSEQUENT 
EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. 


“ And behold, I senfti the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the ay of Jeru- 
salem, until ye be endued with power from on high.”—Luxe xxiv. 49... 202 


: SERMON XXVIII. 
CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 


“ Therefore being ae uA faith, we have pr with God through our Lord Jesus 
_Christ.”—Romans v 1 


SERMON XXIX. 
ON THE ANALOGIES WHICH OBTAIN BETWEEN THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL 
HUSBANDRY. 


“ And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if. man should cast seed into the ground; and 
should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not 
how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the 
full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth i in the sickle, 
because the harvest is come.”—Mark iv. 26-—29. 


SERMON XXX. 


ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL OFFER. 
‘* Good-will towartl men.”—LUKE ii. 14. E . ‘ . 3 : : : 234 


SERMON XXXI. 
ON THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 


“Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the 


good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But eet said, We will not 
walk therein.”—Jeremiau vi. 16. . er 241 


SERMON XXXII. 
THE EFFECT OF MAN’S WRATH IN THE AGITATION OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. 
“The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”—James i. 20. . +s sade OO* 


SERMON XXXiIil. 


| ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. DR. ANDREW THOMPSON. 
"He being dead yet speaketh”"—Hus. xi 4. . . «© + «© «© «© + 26 


vi : CONTENTS. 


SERMON XXXIV. 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR. 


“Blessed is he that considereth the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.”— 
PeaLM™ AH Dew I ae 


SERMON XXXvV. 
ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE. 
“ And the common people heard him gladly.” —Marx xii. 37. + = a rr 


SERMON XXXVI. 


ON THE SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF THE GIVER TO THAT OF THE RECEIVER. 


“T have showed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak ; and to 
romember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to re- 
meive.”—ActTs xx. 35, : : ; " 2 ; : : : ; : ; : 297 


SERMON XXXVIL 
ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 


‘And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou 
to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”—2 TM. ii. 2. ; ° : . 


SERMON XXXVIII. 
ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
“ Honour all men.—Honour the king.”—1 Perer ii. 17. : a) Se . oa 


SERMON XXXIX. 
ON THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. * 


© Not purloining, but showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God 
oui Saviour in all things.”—Tirus ii. 10. . ; nS or Sg telat rea ‘ 2 


SERMON XL. 


THE IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT TO SOCIETY. 

“What then? are we better than they ?. No, in no wise: for we have before proved both 
Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, 
not one; There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are 
all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, 
no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the 
poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; Their feet 
are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have 
they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know, that what things 
soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law ; that every mouth may be stopped, 
and all the world may become guilty before God.’—Romans iii. 9—19. _. a é ‘ 3SE 


SERMON XLI. 


ON THE CONSISTENCY BETWEEN THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER, AND THE UNIFORMITY 
OF NATURE. 


‘Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own 
lusts,—and saying, Where is the promise of his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all 
things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”—2 Prrer iii. 3, 4. ; 35¢ 


SERMON XLII. 


HEAVEN A CHARACTER AND NOT A LOCALITY 


“He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still ; 
and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.”— 
Rev. xxii. 11... ‘ : : : : 4 : ; : : : ae ; 362 


SERMON XLIII. 


LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 
“ Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness.”—Psaim cxii. 4. . 2 


* SERMON XLIV. 


THE OUTWARD BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE OF*GOD. . i 376 


POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. 


SERMON LIL 
DIVINE SUMMARY OF HUMAN DUTY, ; aoe : : : : . 885 


SERMON UH. 


- 

GUILT OF CALUMNY, , P . ; ; . ‘ . : ‘ é . 390 
SERMON III. 

THE TROUBLED HEART COMFORTED, : ; 3 é ‘ P Z gh id OT 
SERMON IV. 

FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT CAVERS, ‘ ‘ : ‘ - é : : . 40k 
SERMON V. 

FAST-DAY SERMON, i : : - : - ° . ‘ . . - 404 

* 

SERMON VI. 

COURTEOUSNESS,.. : ‘ . * : ‘ a ‘ . ‘ ‘ ~ 409 
. SERMON VIL. 

FAST-DAY DISCOURSE, . . : : : . tears Via . . . » 415 
SERMON VIII. 

THE SENTIMENTS SUITABLE TO A COMMUNION SABBATH, ‘ ; ‘ » 419 
SERMON IX. 

ZiON REMEMBERED BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON, . . : 5 ° ; - 428 
SERMON X. 

THE LIVING WATER, : . ° : : : : : a ten : - 437 
SERMON XI. 

THE DUTY REQUIRED AND THE STRENGTH IMPARTED, . ‘ ‘ : : - 456 
SERMON XII. 

THE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY, . : ’ ‘ A . . . 466 
SERMON XIU. 

DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS, ‘ A * , < ‘ ‘ - : 4 - 4416 
SERMON XIV. 

DEFENCE OF RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM, : i . - ‘ ; ; ; . 487 
SERMON XV. 

FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY, .  . F : : ° ‘ ? . 495 


SERMON XVI. 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY, . ; : . e ° . oN » 499 
a 


Vill CONTENTS. 


SERMON XVII. 
THE RIGHT FEAR AND THE RIGHT FAITH, . : : : . . : 


SERMON XVIII. 
SPIRITUAL IDOLATRY, . . . . . . 3 oe . ° 


SERMON XIX. 


SACRAMENTAL SERMON, . . . . . . ‘ e . e 


SERMON XX. 
THE TEMPTATION, . ‘ : : : ; : : : _ 2 . 


| SERMON XXL 
THE TEMPTATION, . 


SERMON XXII. 


CHE EMBASSY OF RECONCILIATION, 


SERMON XXHUI. 


“THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SECULARIZED, . ° . . . . . 


SERMON XXIV.’ - 


CHRISTIAN MEEKNESS, 


SERMON XXV. 


THE SILVER SHRINES, . ° . . . . * : « « 


SERMON XXVI. 


THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD WISER THAN MEN, 


SERMON XXVIL 


DUTIES OF MASTERS AND SERVANTS, . . ‘ ‘ : . . 


SERMON XXVIII. 


SERMON TO THE YOUNG, : : ; ; : ; , : ’ : 


SERMON XXIX. 


FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT GLASGOW, . . . . . . e . 


SERMON XXX, 
JURY NOT IN GOD,. 


SERMON XXXI. 
ADDRESS TO DR. DUFF, . 3 ; . : : E ; ‘ . : 


SERMON XXXII. 


SERMON AT THE OPENING OF FREE ST. JOHN’S, GLASGOW, 


SERMON XXXII. 
THE ARTICLES OF THE COVENANT, . : ; : 


561- 


568 


gr 
Or 


580 


608 


615 


624 


SERMON I. 


On the Paternal Character of God. 


“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shal] 
your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?’ Marvu. vii. 11. 


In our purposed treatment of this verse 
we shall advert to some of the general 
doctrine that may be educed from it. 

I. The first thing to be noticed is the 
designation of evil, given by our Saviour, 
to men of whom He nevertheless admits, 
that they-profess a habit and are prompted 
by an affection, both of which are un- 
questionably good. It is surely a good 
thing for one to have a parental fond- 


ness towards. his own offspring. We 


cannot dispute that there is much of love- 
liness, in the various guises and manifes- 
tations of this universal instinct of our 
nature. We feel as if it had a moral 
- beauty, even when we observe it among 
the inferior animals—and, still more, 
when we rise to those more touching 
and graceful exhibitions of it, which oc- 
cur every day in our own species— 
whether we read it in the delight of a 
mother’s eye when she looks around on 
the health and happiness of her chil- 
dren ; or, when disease has entered the 
household, we read it more unequivo- 
cally still in the agitations and alarms of 
a mother’s tenderness. In the shade as 
well as in the sunshine of domestic his- 
tory, does this affection give proof the 
most conclusive both of its reality and its 
force. And we are not sure if there be 
not:even more of what may be. called the 
picturesque of human virtue, in its darker 
passages,—as when the mother plies the 
work and the labours of an untired 
watchfulness over her infant’s dying bed, 
or pours the flood of now unlocked sen- 
sibilities over her infant’s early tomb. 
There never was a heart that could be 
less unmoved by such a representation, 


than that of our pitying Saviour; and 
we may be very sure that He who wept 
at the grave of Lazarus would have 
given both His sympathy and His ap- 
proval to this agony of afflicted nature. 
He would recognize it to be good, to be 
unquestionably good; and still we have 
to ask, what it was that He saw in those 
parents, who, in the instance at least 
which Himself has specified, felt and 
acted in the way that was good, what 
that was which could have led Him who 
knew what was in man, to denounce 
them in character as evil ? 

The devotedness of a parent to his 
children, equals, even in every-day life, 
that which History has recorded to us of 
the sublimest heroism. For them he 
makes the largest surrenders of ease and 
time and fortune. He will compass sea 
and land in quest of a provision for them 
—and, for their sakes, nerve himself 
against the buffeting of all the elements— 
at one time adventurously ploughing the 
ocean in their behalf; and, at another, 
living for years in the exile and es- 
trangement of a foreign clime, with 
nought to soothe him in the midst of his 
fatigues but the imagery of his dear and 
far distant home. It is the strength of 
this family affection by which the great 
society of mankind is upholden, made up 
as it is of families. It is this which nour- 
ishes them in childhood, which counsels 
and cares for them in youth, and which 
even after the perversities or the losses of 
their manhood welcomes them back 
again to the roof of their nativity, and 
throws them as before on the yet un- 


quelled and unextinguishable kindnes 


~~ 


a GOD'S PATERNAL CHARACTER, 


of the parents who gave them birth; and 
who, even in the winter frost of their now 
declining years, and perhaps the hard- 
ship of their declining circumstances, 
still find the love of offspring all alive 
and warm in their aged bosoms. It is 
in truth one of the strongest and most 
enduring of nature’s propensities—as 
beautiful in its exhibition as it is useful in 
its exercises ; and still the mystery is un- 
resolved, what He, whose discerning eye 
saw it to be in all men and spoke of it as 
good, what that was which He saw uni- 
versally along with it, and on which He 
could censure and stigmatize all men as 
evil. 

For an answer to this question, we 
might draw aid and illustration still from 
the case of a family.. We admit the 
whole truth and tenderness of the paren- 
tal affection. It were in the face of all 
experience, did we deny either the real- 
ity or the strength of those instinctive 
regards, which flow downwards from a 
father’s or a mother’s heart, upon their 
own offspring—and we just bid you ad- 
vert to the weight of gratitude which so 
rightfully lies on those children who are 


the objects of them. Surely if the spec-; 


tacle of tenderness on the one side be so 
very pleasing, the spectacle of disobedi- 
ence or neglect on the other is most 
offensively revolting. In proportion as 
the father lavishes of his ceaseless and 
untired generosity upon the son,—in that 
proportion do we look with moral antip- 
athy to the disdain, or the defiance, or 
the reckless independence of the son 
upon the father. Even though he should 
do with his hand the bidding of this his 
natural superior, yet, if he bear in his 
heart either a cold indifference or a posi- 
tive distaste to the person and society of 
his own parent, this were enough to con- 
vict him of a moral perversity the most 
monstrous and unnatural. We cannot 
refuse the undoubted good will which 
glows unextinguished, and perhaps un- 
extinguishable, in the bosom of the one: 
and all that we ask of you is just to form 
a right estimate, when instead of being 
met from the other by reverence and by 
good will back again, it is only responded 
to with contempt, or with carelessness, or 
with the selfish unconcern of one who 
can ravenously seize upon the gifts, but 
without one movement either of grateful 


[SERM. 


or of duteous inclination towards the 
giver. On looking to this domestic rela- 
tionship, it were a libel on humanity to 
affirm, that there is not among parents, 
much of that love and liberality to their 
children which are undoubtedly and most 
beauteously good. But if, on the other 
hand, if it shall be found of any of these 
children, that they can trample all this 
indulgence under feet, and heedless of 
the hand that sustains them, can forget 
the claims of a father’s tenderness and 
turn unimpressed away from the earnest- 
ness of a father’s voice, then, as surely as 
the first of these exhibitions was good, so 
the second of them is most odiously and 
most painfully evil. 

Now we admit that the love of pa- 
rents to offspring is nearly universal ; and 
we venture not to affirm how often or 
how seldom it may be, that this ingrati- 
tude of offspring to parents is exempli- 
fied within the limits of an earthly 
household, or how often violence is done 
to this relationship in several families. 
But viewing creation as that spacious 
household which is presided over by a 
universal parent, and peopled by a uni- 
versa] family—looking to the relation. 
ship in which all the men of our earth 
stand to their Father who is in heaven 
we affirm, that there is none exempted 
from the guilt of having done most out- 
rageous violence to this relationship, no 
not one.-—The charge which we dis- 
tinctly prefer against every son and 
daughter of the species is their heedless- 
ness of God ; or, if they would but exam- 
ine their own hearts and they will find 
it there, a cleaving and constant ungodli- 
ness.—The fondest and most unnatural 
mothers are alike in this—the one differ- . 
ing wholly from the other in relation to 
their own family ; but, viewed as mem- 
bers of the universal family, each de- 
formed by foulest ingratitude to the com- 
mon parent of them all—not chargeable 
im common with the want of love to their 
own offspring ; but in reference to Him 
of whom themselves are the offspring, 
universally chargeable with the most fla- 
grant defects both of love and of loyalty 
—not evil it may be, but good, in regard 
to that instinctive affection which binds 
them to their own little ones; yet not 
good, but glaringly and undeniably evil, 
in regard to their distaste and disinclina- 


t) 


tion for God. Look to them as at the 
head, each of her own household commu- 
nity, and they have at least one point or 
property of good parents. Look to them 
as members of that great community, 
whose habitation is the universe, and 
whose head is the creator of all—and 
they have all the delinquency in their 
¢pirits of evil children. Our Saviour saw 
the one thing they had and pronounced 
it to be good, even as when He looked to 
the young man in the gospel He loved 
him. But He further sees the one thing 
they lack, the great master-virtue of every 
creature both in heaven and on earth, 
and without which all other virtue is 
baseless and perishable; and so they 
who knew how to give good gifts unto 
their children, are nevertheless evil and 
accursed children themselves. 

This language is not too strong for the 
guilt and the turpitude of that enormity 
wherewith humanity is chargeable. Yet 
the majority of our world are all unsus- 
picious of having ought so foul and so 
enormous about them. ‘They can see 
und be impressed by it as a great moral 
delinquency, when a son bears either a 
scowl upon his countenance, or an anti- 


GOD'S PATERNAL CHARACTER. 


9 


of that great human family, who have 
cast off the allegiance of their hearts from 
Him and have turned every one of them 
to his own way? Do you call it nothing 
that this stray planet of ours should be 
burdened with a race sunk in deepest 
apathy toward God ; and, if not lifting 
up the cry of positive rebellion, yet losing 
all sense of His kindness in universal 
regardlessness ? What do you think of 
man that derived and dependent creature, 
walking through life so heedlessly and 
so independently of the Creator who 
gave him birth—receiving from his hand 
the inspiration of every breath which he 
draws; but with no habitual aspiring of 
the soul to Him back again—curiously 
fashioned by the skill of that. Master 
Architect who formed him; yet bearing 
it as proudly as if all his parts and all his 
faculties were his own—nourished from 
his cradle to his grave by the gifts of an 
all-sustaining Providence ; and reckless 
all the while of the giver who bestows 
them—se_fishly revelling in the midst of 
a thousand earthly gratifications; but 
without any rejoicing gratitude to Him 
who out of the treasury of His own ful- 
ness, hath poured them forth in such lux- 


pathy in his bosom towards his earthily | uriance upon our world—living every 
father ; and they will even readily admit, | hour under the guardianship of a God 
that no constrained obedience by the hand, | whose eye watches him continually; and 
can atone for the disaffection of the heart | yet with his own eye almost as continu- 
‘ina state of hostility and revolt against |ally averted from his God—looking 
the parent who gave him birth. Andjabroad on a glorious panorama with 


even should there be no positive hostility, 
yet should the heart be in a state of 
indifference only,—the indifference you 
will observe of a child to that parent, who 


tended him from infancy to manhood, 


and who now feels it the sorest agony of 
nature, that he should have brought upa 
family who simply do not care for him— 
this neglect merely, even though there 
should be no botrad is enough of itself 
to fasten the imputation of a very foul de- 
formity on him who is chargeable there- 
with. Yes! we are capable of feeling 
most vivid indignation, when an earthly 
parent is thus robbed of that moral pro- 
perty which belongs to hin, in the love 
and the loyalty of his own offspring— 
and how then can you miss the far more 
emphatic application of a principle, the 
very same in kind, though far more in- 
tense in degree, to our Father who is in 
Heaven? What do you make, we ask, 
2 


heaven’s illuminated concave above his 
head, and around him a scenery of smil- 
ing landscapes ; but without the recogni- 
tion of that unseen Benefactor who 
pencilled it with all- its beauties, and 
lighted it up with innumerable splendours 
—inhaling fresh delight through every 
organ of his sentient economy: yet all 
his senses steeped, as it were, in the utter 
oblivion of Him who furnished him with 
all his various capacities of sensation, and 
so adapted him to the theatre which he 
occupies, that the air and the water and 
the earth and all the elements of sur- 
rounding nature are the ministers of his 
enjoyment? You know how to denounce 
the ingratitude of a child to its earthly 
parents—but 1s there no term in your 
vocabulary of crime or of condemnation 
for ingratitude like this? And you know 
how to feel for the agony of the parent’s 
wounded bosom—and is there no force 


10 


m the complaining voice of Him who 
saith to us from heaven, “ Behold I have 
stretched forth my hand and no man 
regarded ?” ‘There is a moral lethargy 
that has laid hold of our species ; and we 
feel not the evil of that which in the up- 
per sanctuary is felt to be enormous—the 
guilt of creatures who have disowned 
their Creator, the deep criminality of a 
world that has departed from its God. 
You will now perceive how Jesus 
Christ, while He admitted of mankind 
ihat they possessed one thing that was 
good, even the parental affection, yet He 
denounced them in the general as evil. 
He had recently come from the place 
’ where that evil was felt in all its enor- 
mity. He had just left heaven, where, 
on the one hand, He witnessed the 
strength and the warmth of that parental 
affection which radiated from the throne 
of God upon all His creatures—and He 
had now lighted upon earth, where He 
further witnessed the total heedlessness 
and ingratitude of creatures back again. 
Possessing as He did the intelligence and 
the sympathies of that celestial family 
where He had been, He could not pro- 
nAounce otherwise than in our text on the 
men whom He visited. The .ove of par- 
ents to children He could not but ap- 
prove—a virtue which graced the char- 
acter even of God in heaven, and which 
still surviving the fall of our species in 
the shape of a constitutional instinct, op- 
erated strongly and universally among 
the families of earth. Yet just in propor- 
tion that He admired the affection of pa- 
rents, would He abhor the disaffection of 
children—the very feeling which your- 
selves have when you look to the earthly 
relationship.—But He looked also to the 
heavenly relationship—and then He 
clearly and immediately saw, that, though 
the parental love of the one relationship 
had in the shape of an instinct remained 
unbroken in our world; yet the filial 
loyalty and gratitude of the other rela- 
tionship had not survived the moral ruin 
of our species but in the shape of a prin- 
ciple had totally disappeared. And so 
on the one hand when He witnessed 
among men this strong devotedness of 
spirit to their offspring, and on the other 
hand witnessed as strong a defection of 
spirit from their God—He both could 
admit that one thing which they retained 


GOD’S PATERNAL CHARACTER. 


[SERM. 


to be good, and yet, wanting as they did 
that great virtue which links the creature 
to his Creator, He denounced themselves 
as evil. | 

This ought to teach, in what terms we 
should speak of that undoubted doetrine, 
as true in the eye of sound philosophy as 
it is in the eye of sound faith—the de- 
pravity of our nature-——This depravit 
does not lie in the utter destitution of all 
that is amiable in feeling, or of all that is 
useful in the practical and urgent princi-— 
ples of our nature. It may be expressed 
by one word. It lies in ungodliness. 
This is the constituting essence of that 
great moral disease under which human- 
ity labours—a disease however that pre- 
vents not humanity from giving forth 
many beauteous exhibitions, whether it 
glows at one time with sentiments of 
proudest heroism, or melts at another 
with the sensibilities of a most graceful 
tenderness. ‘There might be beauty of 
character even as there is beauty of 
colour and form, where there is no reli- 
gion. There might be a moral as well 
as a material loveliness, apart from any 
love of God in the heart, or from the 
moving efficacy of God’s law upon the 
conduct. There is beauty in the blush 
of a rose, and there is beauty of a higher 
character <n the blush that mantles the 
cheek of modesty—and yet there may be 
just as little of loyalty to God in the liv- 
ing as m the inanimate subject.—It is 
pleasing to the eye of taste when we be- 
hold the attachment of a mother to her 
young, even among the inferior animals. 
But the same attachment is still more ex- 
quisitely pleasing, because enhanced to 
us by all the home sympathies of our 
own felt and familiar nature, when we 
behold a mother of our species lavishing 
her endearments and her smiles upon an 
infant family—and still as before, might 
the rational be as destitute of any inclina- 
tion towards God as the irrational 
creatures—and while we refuse to neither ' 
a most precious affection, we affirm of 
both that they are alike dead to the power 
or the principle of sacredness. And itis 
the same of many other propensities of 
our constitution. ‘There might be the 
cordiality that delights in the virtues of 
good fellowship—there might be the 
compassion that urges to the relief of 
misery—there might be the delicacy that 


J 


would refrain from what is hurtful or 
offensive to a neighbour’s feelings—there 
might be a high-minded integrity, and 
truth that would spurn away the tempta- 
tions to unworthy artifice—in a word, 
there might be all those native moralities 
which uphold the economy of an earthl- 
state, and all those native affections be 
tween man and man which shed a plea- 
sure and a brightness along the way of 
his earthly pilgrimage—all this we say 
existing and in busy play among the 
members of a terrestrial community be- 
low, among whom at the same time the 
religious principle was utterly unfelt, and 
godliness, that morality which binds earth 
to heaven, was neither recognized nor re- 
garded by them. This we deem the 
right way to propound the depravity of 
our nature—to affirm, as we are fully 
warranted by observation to do, that there 
exists in the bosom of unregenerate man 
no affection or no affinity to God, but not 
to refuse, that many are the graces and 
many are the virtues which might 
flourish in the bosom even of earth’s un- 
regenerate families. On the subject of 
man’s daring and desperate wickedness, 
there is a certain sternness of asseveration 
not fitted to advance the cause in whose 
service it is employed—for, independently 
of its harshness, there is a want of exper- 
imental truth in it, which must revolt the 
judoment as well as the sensibilities of 
an intelligent audience. Be assured that 
sound faith is ever at one with sound ex- 
perience—and, therefore, we at all times 
should mix the discriminations of experi- 
ence with the zeal of orthodoxy. 

Ere we leave this part of our argu- 
ment, we have one observation more to 
offer. The reason why, in looking to 
the multitude of man’s natural virtues, 
we lose sight of his ungodliness is, that, 
in point of fact, God wills our most busy 
and strenuous cultivation of them all. 
This gives rise to a confusion of senti- 
ment, in the midst of which we are apt 
to miss altogether the truth of that fatal, 
that entire depravity, which scripture 
every where ascribes to us; and which, 
if we did but study her lessons aright, 
experience would confirm. There is 
spontaneous compassion in many a bo- 
som; and God wills us to be compas- 
sionate. There is instinctive affection 
almost with all for their own children ; 


GOD'S PATERNAL CHARACTER. 


a] 


and God tells us to Jove our children. 
There is an inborn uprightness with 
some in virtue of which they would not 
lie, and would not steal; and God bids 
us to lie not and to steal not. And hence 
that perplexity of thought, which I am 
;now trying to unravel. People delude 
‘themselves into the imagination of a cer- 
tain godliness within them, because they 
do many things the matter of which is 
the very matter of God’s own command- 
ment. The difficulty is to make them 
conceive of two actions which, in respect 
of materiel, are altogether the same, that, 
in respect of morale, they may be wholly 
dissimilar, nay opposite. ‘l’o refrain from 
theft in the spirit of high and honourable 
feeling, is not the same exhibition with 
that of refraining from theft in the spirit 
of obedience to the law of God. It is the 
same exhibition of conduct, but not of 
character ; the same in respect of per- 
formance, but not in respect of principle. 
But thus it is that a man, because of a 
harmony in actions which are merely 
external, may confound the different af- 
fections from which they have sprung 
and which are internal; and, mere y be- 
cause of certain doings, which in the 
letter and outward description of them 
are so in any conformities to heaven’s 
law, he may credit himself with the pos- 
session of godliness—when, in fact, and 
within the whole compass of his moral 
economy, there is no godliness to be 
found. In this way would we convince 
him of sin. We dispute not that he may 
have many good points, many desirable 
properties ; but he wants altogether the 
property of a reigning and ascendant 
godliness. He may be in a state of high 
moral accomplishment ; but, substantially 
and really, he is in a state of practical 
atheism. 

We have left ourselves but little room 
for that which is nevertheless the main 
lesson of our text, a lesson of confidence 
in the liberality and good-will of our 
Father in heaven. To beget in our 
hearts this delightful assurance, He avails 
himself of imagery at once the most pa- 
thetic and the most persuasive. He an- 
nounces Himself to us in the familiar 
character of a parent. He steps forward 
as it were from the deep and awful mys- 
tery of His unfathomable natt re—and 
tells us that within its recesses, there are 


i2 


the workings towards us of all a Father's 
tenderness. ‘l'o beget a trust in those 
osoms, where else there might well have 
been a dark and overwhelming terror, 
He inlists upon His side the dearest and 
the kindliest of all human recollections— 
and there is not a man, who, looking 
back upon the days of his cherished boy- 
hood, feels reminded by our text of the 
guides and the guardians of his early 
home, but is told that there is a fondness 
which far surpasses theirs, and which 
now beckons and beams upon him from 
heaven. It is thus that the unseen God 
looks out upon the world from the shroud 
of His invisibility,—and, as if to relieve 
our imaginations from the fears and the 
jealousies of a tremendous unknown, He 
selzes on the most intelligible of all 
earthly relationships ; and therewith re- 
presents Himself to our species not as a 
Master over his household, but as a Fa- 
ther at the head of his family. To dissi- 
pate the injurious suspicions of His own 
creatures, He is fain to divest Himself 
of all that is spectral or alarming—and 
how, it may well be thought, could this 
be done more successfully, than by thus 
likening Himself to those parents who 
smiled upon our infancy; and, with a 
friendship which never can misgive, kept 
by us and counselled us through all the 
difficulties of our ascent to manhood. 
The lofty pavilion of His residence on 
high is disarmed of all its terrors, when 
the glorious Being by whom it is occu- 
pied thus lets Himself down as it were 
among our earthly tabernacles ; and tells 
us that the instinct which Himself has 
planted there, but feebly expresses the 
affection that is in His own breast to the 
family of mankind. It is true that in this 
same text, He characterizes mankind as 
evil—not however as a denunciation of 
wrath, but rather as a device or an argu- 
ment by which to win His way more 
effectually to our confidence. The love 
of offspring is one beauteous fragment of 
our nature which has survived its over- 
hrow. It still gleams and gladdens 
hvoughout the ruins of fallen humanity, 
and casts a remaining brightness over 
the habitations of its outcast species. And 
the argument is,—if, such be the strength 
of this principle in our nature, that it 
still keeps its ground even after the 
mighty havoc of so wide and wasteful a 


GOD'S PATERNAL CHARACTER. 


ES AE 


[SERM. 


disorder, how purely and how power 
fully must it operate still in the unaltered 
heart of Him who formed us at the first 
after His own image—in that unviolated 
sanctuary which neither darkness nor 
disorder can possibly enter, even the sin- 
less nature of the Godhead. There it 
still burns undiminished and undisturbed 
in all its original lustre—and by the 
“ how much more” of our text, the forci- 
ble appeal is carried home to all the ex- 
perience we ever had of love and liber- 
ality from our earthly parents who are 
evil. If our memory can tell that they, 
burdened with all the evil of their ac- 
cursed nature, that even they have loved 
us—then, with Faith rejoicing in the 
unchanged and primeval goodness of 
our Father in Heaven, let us have the 
assurance in our hearts that He loves 
more truly, that He loves more tenderly. 
than they. 

Nevertheless, and in the face of this 
touching demonstration, does the guilty 
nature of man keep by its sullen and dis- 
trustfui jealousies. It teels ali the con- 
sciousness of a turpitude within; and, 
conceiving rightly of God as a God of 
inviolable sacredness, it images a Being, 
who, from the height of His affronted 
majesty, looks down with the terrors of 
an offended countenance on the sinful 
world that is beneath Him. This is the 
strong, though secret apprehension which 
lurks in the bosom of all who know 
themselves to be transgressors. They 
are haunted by the dread and the dis- 
quietude of a yet unsettled controversy ; 
and till they perceive how an adjustment 
can be made, and without disparagement 
to the high and lofty attributes of the 
Godhead, they cannot be at rest. It is 
vain to tell them of Heaven’s parental 
love, and how far it outstrips the earthly 
affection of their own parents. Still there 
is that which disturbs and terrifies in the 
imagination of Heaven’s high sacred- 
ness. It is even in vain to speak of its 
being a love unquenched by man’s dis- 
obedience, as pictured forth in the Father 
who ran to meet his wandering prodigal 
and to welcome him back again. Still 
the sense of a dishonoured law and an 
incensed Lawgiver abides in the sinner’s 
guilty bosom; and nothing can effec- 
tually appease his fears, but the revela- 
tion of that way by which the acceptance 


i.) 


GOD’S PATERNAL CHARACTER. 


13 


of the rebel has been made to harmonize | and the Holiness and the Justice, are al] 


with the dignity of the offended sovereign. 

This brings us to the sacrifice which 
has been made for the sins of the world 
—to the decease which was accomplished 
at Jerusalem—and by which the mighty, 


the mysterious problem was resolved, | 


that was unfathomable to the wisdom of 
Nature, and that angels desired to look 
into. ‘This resolves all difficulties; and 
now that the propitiation has been ren- 
dered, man is freely invited to rejoice in 
his God, and God rejoices over man as 
if man had never fallen. 
ted by the sacrifice that has been made 
for it; and now with a clear conscience 
because now ‘on a consecrated way, 
might the guiltiest of our world draw 
nigh and make his requests known unto 
God. He is now on firm and high van- 
tage ground for prayer ; and in the face 
of Jesus Christ that vail which mantled 
the aspect of the Divinity is withdrawn. 
The voice of the intercessor is now added 
to the voice of the suppliant ; and while 
the mercy of the Godhead is all awake 
o the sinner’s imploring cry, the Truth 


propitiated by the Saviour who died for 
him. This isthe mediatorial ground on 
which the righteous God and His rebel- 
lious creatures can commune peaceably 


'—and now that the incense of a sweet- 


smelling savour is between them, He can 
effuse all the love and liberality of a Fa- 
ther on His redeemed children, and be- 


| stow good things on all who ask Him. 


vif you will. 
Sin is oblitera- | 


Forgiveness is yours if you will. The 
clean heart and the right spirit are yours 
Heaven with all its glories 
is open to receive you. And _ holiness, 
which is the dress of Heaven, is ready to 
fall, like Elijah’s mantle, from the hand 
of Him who hath said—“ Turn unto me 
and I will pour out my spirit upon you.” 
Under the economy of the Gospel all the 


| ets and hindrances, which obstructed 





these generous communications from the 
upper sanctuary, are now done away. 
And, kinder far than ever earthly father 
to his offspring, does the bountiful God 
who is in Heaven, rejoice in meeting all 
the wishes, and supplying all the wants 
of His spiritual family. 


SERMON IL. 
The State of the Unconverted. 


“ At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and stran- 
gers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” —Epur- 


SIANS ii. 12. 


Te change from a wrong to a right 
state in religion isa far mightier transi- 
tion in the habit of the soul, than is gen- 
erally imagined. And it is the under- 
rating of the magnitude of this transition 
which lies at the bottom of all that mea- 
gre and superficial Christianity where- 
with so many are satisfied, although it 
be altogether short of eternal life. Ere 
the soul can hold affinity or conversa- 
tion with heaven, there is a certain de- 
velopment which it must be made to un- 
dergo, as great, and at the same time as 
essential, as that by which the chrysalis 
is emancipated from its prison-house ere 
it can expatiate among the fields of light 
and of ether which are above it. We 
speak not of that resurrection which takes 


place with man on the other side of 
death. We speak of that spiritual resur- 
rection which takes place. here, when the 
heart of man is made alive to the power 
of unseen things, and the crust of its 
earthliness is broken. Man cannot by 
his own strength achieve this revolution 
upon himself. He cannot so change the 
feelings and faculties of nature, as that, 
heretofore awake only to sense and to 
time, he shall henceforth be awake to the 
things of the Spirit, and breathe with 
kindred satisfaction in a spiritual atmos- 

here. ‘There is a translation from the 
walk of sight to the walk of faith—there 
is a passing out of darkness into marvel- 
lous light—there is a release from the 
bondage of the world and its besetting — 


14 STATE OF THE 
influences, to the glorious liberty of a 
willing subjection under Him who made 
and who upholds the world—which are 
represented in Scripture, not as the fruit 
of an amendment that lies within the 
compass of human power, but as the fruit 
of a regeneration, which it requires the 
forthgoing of a divine power to accom- 
plish ; and which is likened, or rather 
identified in the New Testament, with 
that supernatural energy whereby Christ 
was raised from the dead. So that the 
power which reanimates a body is not 
spoken of as more extraordinary or 
miraculous, than the power which reno- 
vates a spirit—nor is it deemed a more 
supernatural achievement to call up the 
one from its grave and usher it into the 
life of nature, than to call up the other 
from its state of death in trespasses and 
sins to that new moral existence which 
forms the true life of the soul, the beati- 
tude and the essence of life everlasting. 

In describing, as is often done, the 
marks of conversion, there is much that 
to a general hearer must be wholly un- 
intelligible. It is mysticism to him, be- 
cause it is beyond the range of his own 
felt and familiar experience. How can 
we speak to his sympathy or to his un- 
derstanding, when we assign, with what 
ever clearness or accuracy, the charac- 
teristics of a state, into which he has not 
entered? But there are also character- 
istics belonging to the state of unregene- 
rated nature, out of which he has not yet 
emerged ; and by means of these we 
may hold out his own likeness to some 
convicted, some conscience-stricken hear- 
er. The text presents us with several 
of those lineaments or traits of character, 
which enter into the portraiture of a man 
previous to his Christianity. At pre- 
sent, we shall only fasten upon one of 
these—even his being without God in 
the world, And should we manifest the 
truth of this description to the conscience 
of any, we may perhaps with the bless- 
ing of God, succeed in alarming them 
into a sense of their yet destitute and un- 
provided eternity. 

Let us therefore endeavour to show, 
in the first place, how truly the natural 
state of mag is represented, as being in- 
deed withdat God in the world—TIn the 
second place, how this must e ‘er con- 
tinue to be the state of man, so long as 


UNCONVERTED, {sERM 
he continues to be without Christ—And, 
lastly, let us urge, as the Gospel warrants 
us to do, your acceptance of Christ, as 
being the only but the sure link of re- 
union with God ; and on whom if you 
do lay hold, you will live no longer 
without, but you will live with God in 
the world. : 


Before we enter on the first head of 
discourse, let it be remarked, that when 
we speak of man being without God, we 
do not speak of man as outcast from the 
favour and friendship of God; but of 
God, or rather the thought of God, as 
outcast from the spirit of man. We 
mean by our being without God, that we 
are without an effectual or abiding sense 
of Him in our hearts—that we live with- 
out Him in the world—that we betake 
ourselves to our own way, unmindful of 
Him or of His way. In short we take 
the phrase not externally, and with refer- 
ence to the deed of the Creator, as if God 
had cast us off; but internally, and with 
reference to the desire and spirit of the 
creature, as if we had cast Him off— 
casting Him off from our allegiance so 
as to live independently of Him, and to 
manifest by our whole habit and history 
in the world that we will not have God 
to reign over us. 


I. Now to substantiate this charge, let 
us not detain ourselves with any length- 
ened argument on the case of those of 
our species. who, whether many or few, 
are characterised by open and habitual 
proflizacy. We do not need laboriously 
to search after the evidence of their be- 
ing without loyalty to God—seeing that 
we have the overt-acts of their disloyalty 
so palpably before our eyes. ‘The dis- 
honesty, or the malice, or the licentious- 
ness, or the profanation—these are so 
many visible ensigns of their rebellion 
against that monarch whose law they so 
directly and so daringly violate; and, 
with such signals of defiance to heaven 
planted along the line of their outward 
history, it were a superfluous task to 
probe and scrutinize among the arcana 
of their spirit, in quest of that ungodli- 
ness which broadly announces itself at 
the first glance, and in characters that 
cannot be mistaken. It is only then that 
the task becomes a hard one, when we 


eee 


nj STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. 15 


have to deal with the subtle ungodliness 
of those, who, free from the delinquen- 
cies of human life, are studiously obser- 
vant of all its decencies—of that mighty 
host who stand in the middle place be- 
tween crime and Christianity—being 
neither to be charged with the abomina- 
tions of the one, nor yet at all to be cred- 
ited with the elt oas of the other. 
They form the great mass of society ; 
and are spread out as it were over that 
table-land in character, where they are 
not so sunken as to be numbered among 


the reprobates by the world, nor yet so 


elevated as to be numbered among the 
religious by Him who made the world. 
Still they are without God—as’ much 


_ without Him if they but knew it, as any 


of those who on the scale of the terres- 
trial morality are so immeasurably be- 
neath them. Let the scale of that moral- 
ity which is celestial be applied, and it 
will be found of them all, that they are 
at an equal distance and disruption from 
God. ‘To draw a comparison from the 


- material world—the summit of a moun- 


tain on the surface of our earth looks to 
human eyes as if magnificently elevated 
above its base; and yet in reference to 
the sun, though made somewhat nearer 
to it by the ascent, we are still within an 
insensible fraction of being as remotely 
distant from that glorious luminary, as 
those whom we have left behind us in 


knowledge how possible it is to live « 
life of innocence in regard to society, and 
yet in regard to God a life of complete 
irreligion. Vice is not a necessary 
ingredient of worldliness. Yours may 
be a habit of honourable business, or of 
studious and enamoured literature, or of 
domestic faithfulness and assiduity, or 
even of devoted philanthropy and patriot- 
ism—yet one and all of these, untainted 
with crime, nay signalized by the respect 
and gratitude of mankind, may still be 
but so many varieties of worldliness. 
Still while engaged in any of these ways, 
it is not with God that the spirit holds 
converse; but it is wholly with the 
derived and dependent things which pro- 
ceed from God that the spirit is at play. 
Literature is better than licentiousness— 
domestic regularity is better than lawless 
dissipation—the business of the shop or 
of the market is better than the business 
of the gaming-table or of the highway. 
These modes of conduct admit of com- 
parison; and to certain of them rathcr 
than to others the meed of superiority.is 
vightfully awarded. This we cannot 
dispute ; and this, for any argument of 
ours, it concerns us not to deny. All we 
affirm is, that it is possible, nay that it is 
frequent, nay that it is ordinary as falling 
in with the currency of nature—that each 
of these varieties, in the habit and history 
of man, may be seen exemplified in a 


the depths below. There is no ascent| state of disjunction from God. There is 


we can make among the terrestrial eleva- 
tions of our world, which brings us sen- 
sibly nearer to any orb in these material 
heavens. And there is no ascent we can 
make among the elevations of a mere ter- 
restrial morality, which brings us sen- 
sibly nearer to Him who rules supreme 
in the spiritual heavens, or indeed to any 
member of heaven’s spiritual family. 
And just because it is a morality without 
godliness—just because it is possible to 
be so gifted and adorned therewith, as to 
look prodigiously elevated above our fel- 
lows; and yet, immeasurably beneath 
the standard of the sacred and the spirit- 
ual, to be without God in the world. 

But we do not stand in need of illus- 
tration from other things to make good 
our charge—seeing that we can do so by 
a direct appeal to the conscience. Let 
any of you but reflect aright on the his- 
ory of a single day—and you will ac- 


many a life spent in upright and prosper- 
ous merchandise, and where God is un- 
heeded along the whole path of it. There 
is many a life spent among books and 
amid the charms of philosophy; and 
where the intellect of man, regaled with 
these, has yet never recognized the claims 
of the originating God to all the grati- 
tude and all the glory of such dignified 
enjoyments. ‘There is many a life spent 
in the busy succession of household tasks, 
or the sweets of domestic ‘tenderness ; 
and yet, in the bosom of these families on 
earth, there is no hourly, no habitual re- 
membrance of Him who is the great 
Father of the human family. There is 
even many a life spent in the bustle and 
enterprise of schemes of usefulness, 
where the public good is honestly aspired 
after, and where apart from the pursuit 
of a name, the achievement of our species’ 
or our country’s welfare would be fe,t as 


16 STATE OF THE 
a real gratification; and yet, with this 
constitutional benevolence which so fits 
us for the citizenship of the world, there 
may be no citizenship in heaven—no 
terest and no part in its grand adminis- 
trations—no converse with Him who 
sitteth upon heaven’s throne—no building 
up of a provision either in behalf of our- 
selves or others for the good of eternity. 
In a word, each man acts according to 
his own proper and characteristic variety ; 
and yet there may be nought of God in 
these varieties. Each man comes forth 
with his own spontaneous evolutions ; 
and yet, endowed though he be with an 
intelligence and a will and the faculties 
of a moral nature, there may be as little 
of godliness in any of his movements, as 
there is in the movements of an automa- 
ton that is guided according to the springs 
and the workings of a machinery within. 
Both the physical and the moral mechan- 
ism have their place and performance on 
the earth below ; and each may be alike 
removed from all contact or communica- 
tion with the upper sanctuary. There 
may be even a moral loveliness in man 
separate from religion ; but like that of 
fruit or of flowers, it is but the loveliness 
of earth. The man, thus decked with 
the graces and the accomplishments of 
natural virtue, may notwithstanding, only 
mind earthly things—and, under a thou- 
sand various hues and complexions of 
character from the more or less odious to 
the more or less amiable and engaging, 
there may sit one aspect of ungodliness 
on the face of an alienated world. 

For the truth of this representation, we 
make our confident appeal to many a 
conscience. Is there none here present 
of whom it may be said, that heaven in 
their eye is a land of shadows ; and that 
the thought of heaven’s Sovereign is to 
them as unimpressive, as any mere 
shadowy imagination? God is wholly 
out of sight ; and He is almost as wholly 
out of mind. They work, or they bar- 
gain, or they spend their successive hours, 
or they go about the varied business of 
their callings and their amram 
much as they would have done, althoug 
in their hearts there had been no belief 
af God. It is not from Him that they 
fake the guidance or direction of their 
hfe, in the main bulk and magnitude of 
its concerns. They move almost alto- 








| 


UNCONVERTED. JSERM 
gether on their own spontaneous im- 
pulses, and scarcely fetch one impulse 
from the consideration of God’s will or 
God’s law. We state the matter plainly, 
and for the very purpose that you may 
take it home to your own recollections of 
what you daily and familiarly are—a 
self-moving and self-regulating creature, 
walking in the counsel of your own 
heart and after the sight of your own 
eyes, and without one thought all the 
while of the duteousness or dependence 
which you owe to God. Now that He 
has made you, and endowed you with 
certain powers, and provided you with 
certain capacities of enjoyment, and 
placed you in a theatre richly crowded 
with objects upon which you can exer- 
cise the one and gratify the other—now, 
you are content to manage without God 
to take as it were the whole interest an 

conduct of your existence into your own 
hands—alike reckless of the power that - 
formed and of the providence that upholds 
you. This practically and really is the 
state of nature in reference to God. You 
can best tell whether in the description 
of it which we now give you recognize 
your own likeness—whether you are in 
that state which substantially and in effect 
is a state of atheism—ain that tremendous 
condition from which if there be no 
resurrection here into another habit of 
the soul, you never can be preferred here- 
after to the honours or the beautitudes of 
a glorious eternity—even the condition 
of living as you list, of living without 


'God in the world. 


And let it not hide this melancholy 
truth from your eyes—that you appropri 
ate certain days and occasions to the 
special recognition of your Maker. We 
are aware of these formalities—and that 
it would even pain you if they were dis- 
pensed with. There is a certain dese- 
cration of your sabbaths, a certain inter- 
ruption of your wonted attendance on 
sermons and sacraments, which would 
inflict the very same discomfort upon you 
that is felt by pagans and idolaters on the 
suspension of their solemn rites, their 
temple services. This after all afflicts 
you, not because an outrage upon vital 
godliness, but because an outrage upon 
custom and nature—and thus the pago 
das of Hindoston, and the churches of 
Christendom, might give rise to a like 





u.} STATE OF THE 
exhibition of character on the part of 
those who repair to them; and a like 
violence may be felt as done to the habits 
and the hereditary superstition of both, 
by any glaring inroad on their religious 
observances. But truly these separate 
ane ceremonial acts of homage to the 
Divinity, argue nothing of a spirit at all 
assimilated to His spirit, or of a charac- 
at all assimilated to His character. ‘These 
outward loyalties to God do not consti- 
tute the habit of living with God—any 
more than a thousand prostrations of the 
body could make up one princiy's in the 
heart. What we allege of your prayers 
and your ordinances is, that they are so 
many things which sit loose as it were 
on the tablet of human life, without 
entering as a pervading ingredient, or, 
if we may so speak, without making part 
either as woof or as warp of the tablet 
itself We mean, they incorporate no- 
thing that is vital or permanent with the 
character. Your morning and evening 
exercises, and your seventh-day . devo- 
tions, loolk to us as so many embank- 
ments thrown at stated intervals across 
the current of your existence. They do 
not tinge or qualify that current. They 
only arrest it for a little, and then let it 
go, but with the very same quality as 
before—so that from its fountain head to 
its mouth, in spite of all the stops or de- 
fiections which it may have undergone, 


‘it retains its properties unaltered, from 


the place at which it issued to the place 
of its discharge among the waters of the 
ocean. And even so, we fear, with the 
spirits of our earthly and alienated race. 
In the progressive course of such a one, 
from the day of birth to the day of disso- 
lution, he may have his periodical deten- 
tions at the house of God; but whence 
he is soon réleased, and let off again 
without one slight infusion of the savour 
of godliness. The tenor of his engage- 
ments with this world of sense, may be 
broken every week by the recurrence of 
sabbath ; but, when this is overpast, his 
life just flows on as before without one 
tincture of a Sabbatical spirit, or the spirit 
of sacredness. He seems to have acted 
for a little season the part of a religionist; 
but he joined with the full heart and 
habit of worldliness in the services of the 
sanctuary, and retired from them as 
strong and unaltered in secularity as 
3 


UNCONVERTED. : 17 


ever. He may even love the frame-work 
of the service, and yet be unleavened by 
the essence of it. He comes out the 
same grovelling and terrestrial creature 
that he went in—with the full set and 
strenuousness of his heart upon the things 
which are beneath, and the complete 
withdrawment of his thoughts and affec- 
tions from the things which are above. 
We are not sure if his thoughts be very 
much if at all with God, even on his 
most solemn occasions of retirement from 
the world. But what the text affirms of 
him is, that he is without God in the 
world—and certain it is, that when the 
man comes forth again from his sanctu- 
ary of devotion, when leaving the church 
or the closet he casts himself as before 
among the rounds of ordinary life, when 
bills and bargains and companies and 
either the business or the handicraft of 
his calling take their accustomed place 
in the history of his affairs—then heaven 
and its glories vanish with the speed of 
lightning from the eye of a mind now 
closed in upon bythe objects of an earthly 
scene, and desolated by these of all its 
godliness 


II. We now proceed to show, in the 
next place, that the state of being without 
God is that in which man must ever con- 
tinue, so long as he is without Christ. 

Under this head, too, let it be re- 
marked, that it is not to God having re- 
nounced us, but to us having renounced 
God, that we have been all along and 
still are recalling your attention. It is 
true, that, in virtue of our guilt, God has 
put us away from a place in heaven— 
but what we chiefly advert to throughout 
this discourse, is, that other and distinct 
effect of guilt, in virtue of which it is, 
that we have put God away from a place 
in our hearts. It is not to His having 
banished us from His presence, but it 1s 
to our having banished Him from our 
thoughts that we are now attending. It 
is quite true that the effect of sin on the 
jurisprudence of the sanctuary above, has 
been to separate man from the friend- 
ship of the Lawgiver ; and that it is only 
the atonement by Christ which again re- 
stores him to acceptance and favour. But 
it is also true that the effect of sin on the 
habitual direction of the soul of man be- 
low, has been to separate God from the 


18 STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. [SERM 
regards and contemplations of the au-iof His power. There can be no kind 
man spirit—and what we shortly pro-| regard where there is no confidence; 
pose under the second head is to show,'and how is confidence possible on the 
that it is faith in the atonement of Christ, | part of rebels, against whom the whole 
and this alone, which can restore God to | force and authority of a righteous sove- 
the soul, as the object of its corcial and| reign are armed for their destruction ? 
willing fellowship. ‘It is said of Adam that he hid himself 

To perceive how this may be, let us from the presence of God among the 
ask you to remember how it is that you trees of the garden. Wealso, when like 
proceed with any object, be it animate or to be obtruded on by thé presence of 
inanimate, the presence of which gives; God to our conscience or our thoughts, 
any sort of pain or annoyance to you.' do, by a movement almost instinctive, 
You would shut your eyes, or turn away | flec to hide ourselves. We too have our 
your sight from a revolting object of dis-| gardens of vain security, our places of - 
gust or deformity. You would, if pos-|sweet and soothing forgetfulness, which 
sible, turn aside to escape an encounter | serve, to ourselves at least, the temporary 
on the street with the man whom you purpose of a hiding-place from God. If 
either hated or were afraid of. It isthus| they do not hinder Him from seeing us, 
too that the mind is constantly, though | they at least hinder us from seeing Him ; 
perhaps unconsciously, on the defensive | and this does in the mean time, for a re- 
against the intrusion of such,thoughts or | spite from all those troublesome awaken- © 
images as are hurtful to its repose, or in | ings, which might else have haunted our 
any way disagreeable to it. If it could, | spirits, and rifled away from them the 
it would rather shun the thought which | rest and the enjoyments which we are 
is offensive, the contemplation which at so fain to prolong. It is a fond illusion ; 
all terrifies or disturbs it. Now this is/|and the soul is not willing to break 1 up 
the real secret of our spirit’s habitual | by any such frightfui imagination as that 
alienation from God. It is the sense of | of a terrific judge or august sovereign in 
guilt which explains what otherwise | heaven, with a face of rebuke and an up- 
would be a mystery in our constitution. | lifted arm of vengeance. No, it is glad 
While this continues to haunt us, we} to be embowered as it were in some 
cannot view God otherwise than with | grotto of concealment, so as to shut out 
jealousy and distrust—and, rather than | the hateful, the appalling demonstration 
have the disquietude of any such emo-|—and, in the heat and hurry of this 
tions, we would have God to be not in| world’s business, or in the glee of its 
our view at all) We keep God habitu-| merry companionship, or in the mental 
ally out of view, just that we may not be | engrossment whether of its pleasures or 
disturbed in our habitual enjoyment of | of its cares, it can at all times summon 
the peace of nature. It is thus, if wejaround itself enough of the imagery of 
may so express ourselves, that, hourly | this pleasing and peopled world, to screen 
and minutely, we blink the thought of | from its view both the offended counte- 
God. There is on the part of every | nance of heaven above, and those dread 
mind a natural love of ease, and so, a/| characters of a coming misery which sit 
secret yet strong recoil from every topic | in perspective on the death and the eter- 
of contemplation which is fitted to dis-| nity before it. It cannot by all its con- 
turb it. Now God apart from Christ is |trivances separate God from itself—but 
just such a contemplation. The very | well is it able to separate itself, and, that 
thought of Him, if He be at all appre-| by a wide and a constant interval, from 
hended as a God of sacredness and truth |the thought of God. It can replenish its 
and inviolable majesty, is a thought of | inner chamber with a crowd of phanta- 
disquietude. The soul, if in any degree |sies and hopes and wishes, all rushing 
awake to a right sense of its own unwor- |in upon it from the world that is without, 
thiness, must be fearful of God—nor can |and leaving no room for the descent of 
it escape from the terrors of His offended | any serious or abiding impression from 
dignity, but by lulling itself, among the | the upper sanctuary. It is thus that, from 
opiates of sense and of carnality, into a |the cradle to the grave, the soul is rocked 
profound oblivion both of His purity and|as it were, amid the feelings and the 











1.] STATE OF THE 
fluctuations of a busy world, into pro- 
found insensibility toward Him who 
made the world. And it wills to have 
itso. It wants to hold no converse with 
images of disquietude ; and none more 
‘o than the image of incensed and in- 
nexible Holiness—none more so than the 
mage of a consuming fire, ready to be 
discharged from heaven on all who have 
done offence to heaven’s high Lawgiver 
—none more so than God out of Christ, 
at the sight of whom all the daring and 
defiance of the stoutest-hearted sinner will 
at length melt away; and the thought 
of whom is meanwhile ejected from his 
bosom, as a hateful visitant whose office 
it was to frighten and to annoy. 

Such is the secret but substantial con- 
nexion which obtains between our dread 
of God, and the habitual distance at 
which we stand from Him. We gladly 
shut the mind’s eye against all that is 
painful—and, unless God stands forth in 
another aspect, we shall feel strongly 
and constantly disposed to stifle in em- 
bryo every thought that may arise within 
us of this tremendous because yet unap- 
peased God. In a word, ere we shall 
willingly detain and habitually dwell 
upon the thought of God, He, from a 
painful, must become a pleasing object of 
contemplation. Now this can only be, 
by the terrors of His countenance being 
softened and done away. ‘This can only 
be, if not by dismant'ing Him of His 
truth and holiness and justice—at least 
by those mighty attributes, inflexible as 
they are, being in some way disposed of, 
so as not to take the direction of ven- 
geance against ourselves. ‘T'his can only 
be, by the threats of judgment giving 
place to the assurances of friendship and 
the benignant offers of reconciliation. 
We cannot welcome to our hearts the 
thought of God, so long as the dread and 
the menace of a yet unsettled controversy 
are betwixt us. ‘This question must be 
resolved ; or guilty nature will be at a 
sullen and impracticable distance for 
ever—and, singly on its determination, 
there is suspended the alternative whether 
the children of nature shall be with or 
without God. ap OOF 

Now it is well to put it to the con- 


~ science of those who are without God, if 


they be not also without Christ. These 
two characteristics go inseparably to 


UNCONVERTED. 19 
gether, and may be said indeed to be 
casually or efficiently connected. There 
is no fellowship with the Father, just be- 
cause there is no fellowship with the Son. 
We appeal to those who, in the whole 
spirit and system of their lives, have been 
asunder from God, if they have not been 
equally asunder from Christ. This de- 
serves to be well pondered by them—for 
it may suggest the all-important consid- 
eration, that, the estrangement of their 
souls from God in heaven, has been due 
to a like estrangement from that messen- 
ger who came charged with His calls 
and overtures to earth. Their habitua! 
distance from the one, is resolvable into 
their habitual disinclination from the 
other. They are far from God, just be- 
cause of their heedlessness to the voice 
of Him whose profest office is to bring 
them nigh. It is indeed a wondrous fact 
in their moral history, this perpetual exile 
of their spirits from Him who is the 
Father of spirits; but, as yet, they have 
missed the highway of communication to 
His august and inviolable sanctuary— 
even the way of a consecrated priesthood, 
of an ordained and accepted mediatorship. 
This relation of cause and consequence, 
between being with Christ and with God, 
may guide them to that mystic ladder, by 
which sinners may ascend to the abode 
of the Eternal. ‘They still abide in the 
distance of nature from God—but this is 
Just because they have never ventured, 
on the only stepping-stone, by which 
guilty nature can make its approaches to 
that Being of else unapproachable sacred- 
ness, from whom it is so deeply alien- 
ated. So long have they been without 
Christ, and just as long have they been 
without God. ‘There is a connexion 
here worthy of being most seriously 
dwelt upon. Hitherto they have stood at 
a distante from the Father—but they 
have also stood at an equal distance from 
the Son; and the very reason why with 
God they have no fellowship, is, that in 
Christ they have no faith. 

You will herein see the importance of 
their entertaining the gospel. It is called 
the message of reconciliation; but this 
message, when accepted, does more than 
reconcile—it regenerates. It is not only 
that the sinner’s name is thereby ex- 
punged from the book of condemnation ; 
the fearg and the jealousies and the enmity 


20 STATE OF THE 
of naire to God are also expunged from 
the sinner’s heart. ‘There is a personal 
as well as a legal salvation accomplished 
through the intervention of Him, in 
whose blood we are invited to wash out 
our sins ; and in the investiture of whose 
righteousness we are called upon to ap- 
pear before the mercy-seat. ‘hat is a 
great judicial deliverance, by which the 
sentence of death is cancelled ; and that 
is a great moral deliverance, by which 
the hatred and the terror and the sullen 
despondency of guilt are now done away. 
It is Christ crucified who hath accom- 
plished the one. It is faith in Christ 
crucified which accomplishes the other— 
being that quickening touch which reani- 
mates the coldness of man’s alienated 


spirit, and recalls him to fellowship with 
God. 


iif. Let us now in a few sentences 
address this offered pardon of the gospel 
for the acceptance of you all. It is in- 
deed a pardon held out to all who may 
choose to embrace and rely upon it— 
flung diffusively abroad as it were over 


UNCONVERTED. [SERM. 
covenant. Never was transaction be- 
tween one Being and another more richly 
guaranteed. ‘lhe very designation of a 
promise, as applied to the offered bles- 
sings of the gospel, carries the obliga- 
tion of a contract along with it. It in- 
vests man to whom the promise is made 
with a claim; and it stakes the truth and 
justice of the promiser to the fulfilment 
of it. But when to this we add the firm 
securities, which have been established 
by the Mediator of the covenant—when 
we look to Him, as having borne all the 
debts of sin, snd satisfied all the demands 
of righteousness —when we recollect, not 
merely that mercy has been promised, 
but that a ransom has been found ; that 
the punishment which our Saviour did 
sustain, when He once offered Himself 
for the sins of men, cannot, even in jus 
tice, be executed over again; that the 
reward which he won, not for Himself — 
but for others, cannot even im justice be 
withheld from them—then never, may 
we safely conclude, never was title-deed 
to any inheritance so impregnably valid, 
as that title-deed which believers do pos: 


the face of the whole earth; and there is | sess to an inheritance of glory ; and the 


not one individual of our guilty species, 
who is not welcome to place his steadfast 
and sure dependence thereupon. Let 
but this offer of kindness from God 
simply meet with the homage of confi- 
dence from man; and then there is 
opened up a channel of communication, 
through which there is nothing that shall 
intercept the flow of heaven’s mercy— 
even upon those who in times past have 
most daringly trampled on heaven’s law, 
and done most grievous offence to hea- 
ven’s sacredness. It is the sure though 
the simple ligament, by which man is 
again united with the God from whom 
ne had separated so widely. That liga- 
ment is Faith. God puts forth His offer 
of reconciliation ; and man accepts of the 
offer, simply by the reliance which he 
puts upon its honesty. It is then that 
the reconciliation is entered upon. It is 
then that an act of agreement is struck 
between the parties, who are now the 
parties of a covenant where a faith on 
the one side that never falters, is sure to 
meet with a faithfulness on the other side 
that never fails. 

This dispensation of mercy is com- 


framing of which constitutes the main 
skilfulness which so often in the New 
‘Testament is ascribed to the economy of 
the gospel. It is not mercy alone, but 
mercy in alliance with truth. It is not 
peace alone, but peace in conjunction 
| with righteousness. It is not a simple 
act of forgiveness alone, but of forgive- 
ness couched as it were in the honours 
of God’s vindicated sacredness ; and His 
one attribute of compassion irradiated by 
a lustre from all the other high attributes 
of a nature that is unchangeable. These 
are the leading peculiarities, which serve 
at once to characterise and to dignify the 
whole plan of our salvation ; and, while 
they maintain the character of God un- 
violate, they rest the comfort and confi- 
dence of the sinner on the immutabilities 
of a covenant which never can be broken, 
of a word which can never pass away. 

The calls of this free, but withal sure 
and well-ordered covenant, you may have 
hitherto resisted. Its character, as a mes: 
sage of gratuitous kindness to one and 
all of the human race, you have perhaps 
misunderstood. It is hkely that some of 
you may never have adverted to the per- 


passed about with all the securities of a|fect freeness, wherewith its invitations 


ST 


I,J STATE OF THE 
are made to circulate through the world. 

None of you are beyond the reach of its 
- welcome and good-will; and could we 
point as specifically home to each as we 
now spread abroad among all the assu- 
rance of that blood which cleanseth from 
all sin, and why not from yours ?—then 
should you awaken to a sense of friend- 

ship with God, and, along with it, to the 
charm and power of a new moral exist- 
ence. If hitherto your consciences can 
tell, that you have lived without God in 
the world; and that whereas He is re- 
presented: as the Being with whom you 
have to do, you in fact in the busy en- 
grossment of your manifold doings, have 
held Him in habitual disregard—then 
surely the gospel method of reunion and 
reconciliation with that mighty Being, 
from whom you have all life long been 
practically an outcast, is worthy of your 
most serious entertainment. O- be at 
length prevailed upon to seek after it, 
and you shall find it worthy of all ac- 


UNCONVERTED. 21 
ceptation. A sceptre of mercy is held 
out t: you there. There God 1s stretch- 
ing forth His hands to you. He feels 
all the longings of a Father bereaved 
of his children, and He plies you with 
all the expostulations of a Father's ten- 
derness. What pleasure has He in the 
death of any one of you? It is a plea- 
sure He disclaims; and He protests of 
even the chief of sinners, that He would 
rather he should return to Him and live. 
He sends you bibles which circulate at 
large among your habitations ; and from 
the pulpits of the land, there soundeth 
forth the declaration of a God that waiteth 
to be gracious. Many are the means, 
and many are the messengers whom He 
employs ; and by the permanent institu- 
tion of a christian ministry in the midst 
of you, does He, from generation to gen- 
eration, perpetuate an embassy of peace 
to our world, by which to recall its suc- 
cessive wanderers to God. 


SERMON IIT. ° 


The Goodness and Severity of God. 


“ Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God.”—Romans Xi. 22. 


In the prosecution of this discourse, 
we shall first endeavour to expose the 
partiality, and therefore the mischief, of 
two different views that might be taken 
of the Godhead—and secondly point 
your attention to the way in which these 
views are so united in our text, as to form 
a more full and a consistent representa- 
tion of Him. We shall then conclude 
with a practical application of the whole 
argument. 


I. One partial, and therefore mischiev- 
ous view, of the Deity, is mcidental to 
those who bear a single respect to His 
one attribute of goodness. ‘They look to 
Him asa God of tenderness, and nothing 
else. In their description of. Him, they 
have a relish for the imagery of domestic 
life—and, in the employment of which, 
they ascribe to Him the fondness rather 

than the authority of a Father. In the 


Divinity of the-r imagination, there is not 
the slightest approach to severity and far 
less to sternness of character, the very 
least degree of which would cause them 
to recoil from the whole contemplation— 
that they might forget, among the kin- 
dred and every day topics of their com- 
mon life, all that is repulsive or ungainly 
in the contemplation of sacredness. ‘There 
is but one expression from Heaven’s 
King which they will tolerate—and that 
is the expression of gentleness, and com- 
plaisance, and soft unvaried benignity. 
Ought that can ruffle or displease these 
is banished from their creed, or rather 
never found admittance there, because it 
was no sooner offered to their notice than 
all the antipathies both of inclination and 
taste were up in arms against it. The 
smile of an indulgent Deity i is that where 
with they would “constantly regale them 
selves, while the scowl of an “indignan 


22 


Deity is that before which they would 
most carefully shut their eyes, rather 
than that it should give dread or distur- 
bance to their bosoms. ‘They would ad- 
mit of no other aspect for religion than 
that of uniform placidness—and to deco- 
rate this bland and beauteous imagina- 
tion the more, they would appeal to all 
that looks mild and merciful in the 
scenery of nature—a scenery which God 
Himself hath embellished, and on which 
therefore we might well conceive that he 
hath left the very impress of His own 
character. And whether, it may be 
thought, we look on soft and flowery 
landscapes, lighted up from heaven by 
sweetest sunshine—or towards that even- 
ing sky, behind the hues and inimitable 
touches of whose loveliness, one could 
almost dream that there floated isles of 
Paradise whereon the spirits of the blest 
were rejoicing—or, without poetic reverie 
at all, did we but confine our prospect to 
those realities by which earth is peopled ; 
and take account of those unnumbered 
graces, Which, in verdant meads, or 
waving foliage, or embosomed lake, or 
all the other varieties of rural freshness 
and fertility, lie strewn upon its surface— 
it may most readily be thought, that 
surely He at whose creative touch all 
this loveliness has arisen, must Himself 
be placid as the scene, or gentle as the 
zephyr that He causes to blow over it. 
At present, we do not stop to observe, 
that, if the Divinity is to be interpreted 
by the aspects of nature, Nature has her 
hurricanes and her earthquakes and her 
thunder, as well as those kindlier exhi- 
bitions in which the disciples of a taste- 
ful and sgntimental piety most love to 
dwell. But we hold it of more import- 
ance to remark, that the illusion which is 
thus fostered, and by which God 1s ex- 
clusively regarded in the light of benev- 
olence alone, is not confined to the sons 
and daughters of poetry. It is an illu- 
sion that might be recognised in humble 
life—and which we believe to be of ex- 
tended operation, on the hearts and habits 
even of our most unlettered peasantry. 
There is a disposition amongst them too, 
to build upon the goodness, and to blink, 
if we-may so express it, the severity of 
the divine character. ‘They also ascribe 
a certain facility of temperament to Heav- 
en’s Sovereign-—a sort of easy and good- 





GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD, - 


a 


[SERM, 


natured connivance, of which they prac- 
tically avail themselves—a_placability 
and promptitude to forgiveness upon 
which they count, and on which we may 
add that many of them do draw to an ex 
tent which is altogether indefir.ite ; there- 
by effacing the line of demarcation be- 
tween sin and sacredness, and, on the — 
maxim that God is ever ready to pardon, 
holding it safe for them to transgress at 
all times, up to the strength or urgency 
of the actual temptation. ‘Throughout 
all the classes of society, in fact, it is this 
beholding of the goodness without a be- 
holding along with it of the severity of 
God, that lulls the human spirit into a 
fatal complacency with its own state and 
its own prospects. It is this which sus- 
tains the imagination of a certain vague 
and ill-defined compromise, between in- 
dulgence from heaven upon the one hand, 
and the frailties of our earthly nature 
upon the other—and, in virtue of which, 
man might take to himself the liberty of 
sinning just as much as he likes; and 
then of ‘soothing his apprehensions of 
vengeance by the opiate of this forward 
tenderness on the part of God, just as 
much as he stands in need of it. Such 
is the fearful state of relaxation, in which 
this dislike for a religion of gloom, and 
this demand for a religion of cheerful- 
ness and pleasure, are often found to land 
us in. It is this disposition to soften the 
menaces of the Lawgiver—it is this ten- 
dency to reduce, or rather to obliterate, 
the vindictiveness of His’ nature—it is 
this perpetual gloss that, by means of the 
argument of His goodness, is attempted 
to be thrown over the truth, and the holi- 
ness, and the justice, and the high Sove- 
reign state which compose the severity 
or the awfulness of His character—it Is 
this, in fact, which serves, in practice to 
break down the fences between obedience 
and sin; to nullify all moral government, 
and so to confound all the distinctions be- 
tween one part of the moral territory and 
another; and, by tampering as it does 
with the authority of the divine jurispru- 
dence, to overspread the face of our world 
with a deep and ruinous severity, at the 
very time, that, adrift from the restraints 
of heaven’s law, each may be walking in 
the counsel of his own heart, and after 
the sight of his own eyes. 

So much for the mischief that might 


a 


OF A EOE Oe Te 


~ 


‘ 


m.] GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GoD. 23 


- 


ensue by looking singly to the goodness 
of God, and apart from His severity. But 
there is also a mischief that will ensue, 
by our looking singly to the severity of 
God, and apart from His goodness. 
There are certain theologians who have 


‘thus arrayed Him ; and that, not so much 


oy the views which they have given forth 
of His inviolable sanctity—for none can 
state too strongly, or too absolutely, His 


determined recoil from the approaches of 


moral aid ; but rather by the news which 
they have given forth of such a dread 
and despotic sovereignty, as to impress 
the conception of a fatalism that is inex- 
cusable, a hopeless necessity against 
which all prayer and all performance of 
man are unavailing. Neither do we 
hold them to be chargeable with any 
positive error; or, in the course of their 
adventurous speculation on the decrees 
of God, and the bearing which they have 
on the final destinies of the elect and the 
reprobate, to have affirmed ought that 
was doctrinally or philosophically untrue. 
But there are truths which might be in- 
troduced unseasonably, and on the very 
occasion when they are most liable to be 
erievously misunderstood and misapplied. 
And we do think, that, in the act of hold- 
ing converse with men, for the sake of 
gaining their compliance with the invi- 
tations of the gospel, the matter on hand 


is the perfect freedom and frankness and 
sincerity of these invitations—that then 


it is, when nought should be heard but 
the voice of welcome and of good-will, 
and nothing should be said which might 
counténance the imagination of an im- 
practicable barrier between sinners and 
the mercy-seat. However difficult it may 
be to adjust the metaphysics of the ques- 
tion, there is one thing unquestionable, 
and that is, an amnesty from heaven 
offered without exception to all—a pro- 


pitiation set forth for the sins of the world ;- 


and on which there is not one member 
of our world’s population, who has not a 
warrant to cast the whole burden of his 
reliance—an embassy to our alienated 
species of which the record has come 
down to us, and by which God beseeches 
even the guiltiest of men to enter into 
reconciliation. And therefore we would, 
that the representation were often given 
of a message which might circulate 
around the globe, and a sceptre of for- 


giveness held out in the sight of all its 
families—and we would not, that so 
much as one individual should be chilled 
into hopelessness by the dogmatism of a 
hard and unfeeling theology ; or that, 
fancying some stern or repulsive inter- 
dict against himself, he should feel an 
arrest upon his footsteps, in his return to 
that God who waiteth to be gracious. 
But, independently of all lofty specula- 
tion, and aside from the mysteries which 
attach to the counsels and determinations 
of a predestinating God, there is abroad 
on the spirits of men, a certain practical 
and prevalent impression of His severity, 
to which we believe that most of this 
world’s irreligion is owing. For, how- 
ever strange, it is nevertheless a frequent 
anomaly of human feeling—that they 
who at one time can take comfort in sin 
under such an impression of His good- 
ness as will dispose Him to connive at 
it, have at all times such an overhanging 
sense of His severity upon them as never ° 
to attain a thorough confidence in His 
favour. In spite of every illusion, their 
conscience tells them that they are of- 
fenders ; neither can they get rid of the 
suspicion, that they are not as they ought 
to be; and they are haunted by a secret 
jealousy of God, whom iff spite of them- 
selves they regard as looking with an 
eye of jealousy upon them; and, just as 
a man will gladly shut his eyes against 
the spectacle that pains him, so will they 
shrink from the contemplation that only 
serves to put dread and disturbance into 
their bosoms ; and thus there is a_habi- 
tual distance kept up between the spirits 
of all flesh and Him who is the Father 
of them. ‘There is the feeling of an un- 
settled controversy betwixt you and God; 
and just as you would rather avoid than 
encounter the man with whom you are 
not fully at ease, so you have the same 
motive for shunning all intercourse be- 
tween your own spirit and that of God’s. 
The constant operation of this motive, 
will explain the constancy of your alie- 
nation from Him who made you. ‘The 
world is your hiding-place from God. 
It charms you away trom the thought 
of Him whom you are glad to forget— 
and the light of whose countenance would 
trouble you. Did it shine upon you in 
such characters of mercy as you would 
stedfastly trust and rejoice in, your heart 


24 


would ever be rising towards God, and 
with the very alacrity in which a man 
goeth forth to meet a friend. But, instead 
of this, you imagine a displeasure in His 
countenance ; and you are not at ease 
in his presence; and, beholding the 
severity alone without the goodness, you 
feel it more tolerable for to live in the 
oblivion rather than in the remembrance 


of Deity ; and thus in the midst of formal 


prayers, and of very fair and seemly per- 
formances, the inner man may be in a 
state of perpetual exile from Him who is 
the high and heavenly witness of all its 
thoughts and all its tendencies. ‘This, in 
part, accounts for the sluggishness of na- 
ture—when called upon to stir itself up, 


that it may lay hold of God. There is a 


™, 


certain imagined frown upon His aspect 
which frightens it away—or lays a check 
on all its approximations to the upper 
sanctuary. Our distance from God is 
allied with our distrust in God ; and there 
is a substantial though secret connection, 
in virtue of which it is, that the soul 
keeps habitually away from Him, just be- 
cause the soul is habitually afraid of Him. 

It may appear a mystery—yet, to the 
patient and profound discerner of our 
nature, we are persuaded that it will not 
appear a contradiction—should the same 


GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD. 


[SERM. 


‘goodness in God as might yield enough 


of toleration for sin; and, on the other 
hand, might save him all the disturbance 


that he else would feel, on too near an ap- 
_ proach to His severity or His sacredness. 


II. Nevertheless, there is both a good- 
‘ness and a severity; and this brings us 
to the second head of discourse, under 


| which we proposed to poit your atten- 


tion to the way, in which these two views 
of the Godhead were so united in the 
‘gospel of Jesus Christ, as to form a more 
full and consistent representation of Him. 

First, then, there is a severity. ‘There 
is a law that will not be trampled on. 
There is a Lawgiver that will not be in- 





sulted. There is a throne of high juris- 
prudence that is guarded and upheld by 
all the severities of truth and of firm em- 
pire; and there is a voice of authority 
that issues therefrom, by which we are 
told that heaven and earth shall pass 
away, ere any one of its words can pass 
away. In the economy of that moral 
government under which we sit, there is 
no compromise with sin. There is no 
letting down of the judgment against it. 
The face of God is unchangeably set 
against evil, and either the evil must be 
sanctified into that which is good, or be 


man both occasionally take comfort to| wholly swept away. There is no tolera- 


himself in sin, under the thought of an 
indulgent goodness on the part of God; 
and yet habitually stand at a suspicious 
and mistrustful distance from Him, under 
the thought of His unrelenting severity. 
It is our very distance from God which 
sheds a dimness over His character and 
ways—over His wrath against disobedi- 
ence, as well as over the gentler and 
kindlier attributes of His nature. Alto- 
gether, it is to man at best a shadowy 
contemplation ; and so his imagination 
finds a certain pliancy in the materials 
that compose it. Whatever is dimly seen, 
can more readily and easily be disguised 
by the gloss, which, to serve a purpose, 
may at any time be thrown over it; and 
thus, to quell the remorse and terror of 
guilt, the severity of God may for the 
moment be put out of sight—even though 
this be the aspect in which we most habi- 
tually reoard Him. And thus it is, that 
man takes his stand at the place of dis- 
tance and obscurity, where, on the one 


hand, he might so fancy to himself a | 


tion with God for the impure or the un- 
holy ; and it were a violence to his nature, 
did iniquity pass without a punishment 
or without an expiation. ‘There may, by 
some mysterious conveyance, an access 
be found for his goodness to the sinner ; 
but towards the sin, there is nought in 
the heart of the Godhead, save the most 
unsparing and implacable warfare. With 
sin, he can’descend to no weak or un- 
worthy connivance; and, dwelling as he 
does in lofty and unapproachable sacred- 
ness, He cannot deal with the guilty, but 
in that way, by which His justice shall 
be vindicated, and His law be magnified 
and made honourable, 
: ®. 

In this respect, there is a steadfastness 
of principle, which runs throughout the 
divine administration, and from which 
the august Being who presides over it, 
was never once known to recede or to 
falter. In the whole history of His 
ways, we cannot light upon a single 
instance of God’s so falling back from 
the severity of His denunciations again 


ee ee eee 
tr 


ides GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD. 25 


sin, a8 at all to soften the expression of 
His hatred and hostility towards it. Not 


at the fall—when the one transgression 


of our first parent, was followed up by a 
curse that has burdened the earth and all 
us families for many generations. Not 
at the flood, which rained down from 
heaven, to wash away a wickedness from 
the face of our globe, that Heaven could 
no longer tolerate. Not at the promul- 
gation of the Law from Mount Sinai, 
when the lond and the lofty challenge 
for obedience was made in the hearing 
of the people; and the smoke, and the 
shunder, and the voice gave felt demon- 
stration of an authority which it were 
death to violate. Not at the entrance of 
Israel upon. their promised land, when 


' God, to avouch the truth and the terror 


of His judgment, gave forth his edict 
utterly to exterminate the sinful nations 
that were before them; and so the old, 
and the middle aged, and even the litle 
ones, were destroyed. Not in the subse- 
quent dealing of many centuries with His 
own perverse and stiff-necked children, 
among whom he sent pestilence and 
famine, and captivity, as the ministers of 
His vengeance; and against whom all 
His prophecies of evil were followed up 
by the sure and tremendous fulfilment of 
them. And lastly, not at that terrible 


cele when the Jewish economy was at 


ength swept away; and even the tears 
of a compassionate Saviour did not avert 
the approaching overthrow, but who, 
while He wept over the doom which He 
would not recall, gave most impressive 
exhibition, that, along with the goodness, 
there was also a severity with God. In 
all this, there is admonition for us to 
whom the latter end of the world has 
come; and, as we witness through the 
periods of its past history, how awful 
have been the threats of Heaven against 
the impenitent, and how unfailing the 
execution of them—let us beware of any 
flattering unction upon our own souls ; 
and be very s:re, thaf, on all the ungod- 
liness of the present generation, the de- 
nounced judgment and the denounced 
vengeance are coming—though that 


judgment should be held amid the ele- 


-ments of dissolving nations, and that ven- 


oe to the ruin of a.wretched and un- 
done eternity. 
The great delusion is, that we estimate 


God by ourselves—His antipathy to sin, 
by our own slight and careless imagina- 
tion of it—the strength of His displeasure 
against much evil, only bv the languid 
and nearly extinct moral sensibilities of 
our own heart. We bring down Heaven 
to the standard of Earth; and measure 
the force of the recoil from sin in the 
upper sanctuary, by what we witness of 
this recoil, either in our own bosom, or 
in that of our fellow-sinners upon this 
lower world. Now if we measure God 
by ourselves, we shall have little fear 
indeed of vengeance or severity’ from 
His hands. For, save when there is 
gross and monstrous delinquency, we can 
bear very well both with our own trans- 
gressions and those of others—even 
although these transgressions should be- 
speak an utter alienation of the heart and 
life from God. We should never think, 
for example, of an acquaintance as the 
object of mdignation—merely because he 
was a stranger to prayer and destitute of 
piety. For it so happens, that, while 
there be rare atrocities of character by 
the few, which awaken the horror and 
vivid indignation of the many—there is a 
habit of ungodliness nearly with all, and 
for which there is amongst them all the 
utmost mutual complacency and tolera- 
tion. No man would ever think of vehe- 
mently denouncing another, just because 
he thought little of God; and the whole 
habits of his soul was that of estrange- 
ment from the things of Faith and of 
Eternity. He could view him with easy 
toleration notwithstanding ; and the de- 
lusion is, that he is looked down upon 
with the same complacency from above, 
that he is looked upon by the men of his 
kindred and genial companionship here 
below. This is adverted to by the 
Psalmist ; and from him we learn, that 
even what is so venial in our eyes as the 
mere forgetfulness of God, and for which 
there is such an entire sufferance here, 
that towards this there is the utmost 
severity there—* Thou thoughtest that I 
was altogether such an one as thyself, 
but I will reprove thee, and set thy sins 
in order before thine eyes. Now, con- 
sider this ye that forget God, lest I tear 
you in pieces and there be none to 
deliver.” 

Such is the alliance between our un- 
derstanding and our heart, that man can 


26 


GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF Gop. 


[SERM. 


often succeed in beieving to be true|a manifestation is given in His work of 
what he wishes to be true; and so there | vengeance, be carried forward in as full 


is a very wide and prevalent impression 
among men, that there is just the very 
disposition to tolerate our infirmities in 
Heaven, which we feel that we have 
need of, and have a demand for upon 
Earth. ‘There is thus a very general se- 
curity in the midst of ungodliness—no 
dread whatever of a coming wrath, and 
just because they have done nothing 
to incur the detestation of the world. The 
use of hell is conceived to be as a recep- 
tacle for the outcasts of society ; and that, 
therefore, they have nothing to fear if 
they have not sunk to the crimes and the 
moral hardihood of outcasts. The 
Psalmist hath again said— that the na- 
tions who forget God shall be turned into 
hell,’—and not only to you who are dis- 
graced by profligacy ; but even to you, 
who, busied with the occupations of this 
world, live in a state of total and practical 
unconcern about another world, would 
we address the language of our text, and 
ask you to behold the severity of God. 
But along with this severity, there is 
a goodness that you are also called upon 
to behold ; and if you view both aright, 
you will perceive that they do meet to- 
gether in fullest harmony. It is this, in 
fact, which constitutes the leading pecu- 
liarity of the gospel dispensation—that 
the expression of the divine character 
which is given forth by the severity of 
God, is retained and still given forth in 
all its entireness in the display and exer- 
cise of His goodness. When He is 
severe, it is not because of His delight 
in the sufferings of His creatures, but 
because of His justice, and holiness, and 
truth. His delightis in the happiness 
of that sentient nature which He himself 
hath framed ; and, except it be to the in- 
jury of these high moral attributes, He 
ever rejoices in scattering the fruits of 
His beneficence, over the wide extent of 
a grateful and rejoicing family. When 
He is vindictive, it is not because He 
derives a ork of vengeance ; but be- 
cause the righteousness of His character, 
and the stability of a righteous govern- 
ment, demand it. Could He so manage, 
as that this lofty perfection, and the lofty 


interest which is connected therewith, | 


and convincing manifestation to a work 
of mmercy—could the justice, and the holi- 
ness, and the truth, all of which are set 
forth so evidently on a deed of retribu- 
tion ; could a way be devised, by which 
there may be inscribed as legibly, and 
be made to shine forth in indivated lustre 
on a deed of amnesty—then, we may be 
assured, that He who hath no pleasure 
in the death of children, but who hath 
sworn by Himself that He would rather 
they should live and rejoice in His pre: 
sence for ever—that He, after such a way 
had been opened up and cleared of all 
its impediments, would pour along it of 
His grace, and His goodness, and cause 
them freely to descend and spread over 
even to the uttermost limits of His sinful 
creation. | 

Now it is this, and this precisely, which 
distinguishes the evangelical mercy that 
is gratuitously held out for the acceptance 
of all, from that general mercy in which 
so many do confide, but by which none 
can possibly be saved. Were we asked, 
in briefest possible definition, to state 
what that is, which impresses on the 
mercy of the Gospel its essential and 
specifying characteristic—we should say 
of it, that it is a mercy in full and visible 
conjunction with righteousness. With 
the pardon which it deals out for sin, it 
makes most impressive demonstration of 
the evil of it; and magnifies and does 
honour to the Law, by the very way im 
which it cancels the guilt that has been 
incurred by its violation. All the exhi- 
bition that God would have given of His 
character, by the wreaking of his severity 
upon the rebellious, is still given, un- 
marred and unmutilated, when, under 
the peculiar economy of redemption, He 
lavishes upon them of His loving kind- 
ness and tender mercy. And such is the 
policy cf its constitution, such is the ex- 
quisite wisdom of its contrivance, that the 
mercy of the gospel meets with the truth 
of the law, and God can at once be a just 
God and a Saviour. 

You know how, for this marvellous 
design, the economy of grace has been 
framed ; but, knowing it though you do, 
there is not a believing soul that has ex- 


should not suffer by it—could the sacred- ; perienced the power of this salvation, and 
ness of the Godhead, of which so direct | felt its preciousness, who does not love 


to be often told of it, 


-perfections that cannot be violated. 


wu}. ~ 


That name, which 
3S as ointment poured forth, will always 
bear to be repeated in the hearing of the 
faithful; nor does it ever pall upon the 
spirit of him who hath been visited with 
a sense of his sinfulness, and labours un- 
der the burden of it, though frequently 
the utterance is given, that unto him a 
Saviour has been born. On him did 
God day the iniquities of us all. That 
sword of vengeance which should have 
been lifted up against us, He awakened 
in all its brightness against his fellow ; 
and, in bowing himself down unto the 
sacrifice, Jesus Christ had to bear the 
weight of a world’s atonement. The 
severity of God, because of sin, was not 
relaxed, but only transferred, from the 
head of the offenders, to the head of their 
substitute ; and, in the depth of Christ’s 
mysterious sufferings, has He made as 
full display of the rigours of His unviol- 


able sanctity, as he would have done by'| 
the direct infliction of their doom on the 


millions for whom the Saviour died. 
The characters of truth, and justice, and 
holiness, instead of being effaced’ from 
this administration, stand as conspicu- 
ously blazoned forth, in the new economy 
of the Gospel, as in ‘the old economy of 
the Law; and, with all the freeness and 
exuberance of its mercy, there is pre- 
served the undegraded majesty of a gov- 
ernment that cannot be dishonoured, of 
It is 
true, that sinners are now permitted to 
draw nigh; but it must only be in the 
name of Him, who hath made full ac- 
quittal for Heaven’s insulted authority ; 
and, ample as is the pardon which they 
receive, it is without the compromise of 
Heayen’s high sacredness—seeing that 
it is pardon, earned by a divine sacrifice, 
and sealed with the blood of an everlast- 
ing covenant. The Holy one of I[srael 
now sitteth upon a throne of grace ; but, 
approached as it can only be by the august 
and guarded ceremonial of a priesthood, 
and a consecrated mediatorship, not a 
sinner who draws nigh but must feel in 
his heart the homage, and render in his 
person and his services the fealty that 
is due to a throne of righteousness. He 
reads the inscription of peace between 
God and his own soul—but he reads it 
on that cross upon which the chastise- 
ment of his peace was borne. It is like 





GOODNESS AND SEVERITi OF GOD. — 27 


the man who eyes the fierceness of a 
bursting volcano from some place of 
security where its flames cannot possibly 
involve him—and so he whom the tem- 


pest of God’s wrath hath passed by be- 


cause now discharged upon another, can 
now securely rejoice himself in the good- 
ness, while in the cries, and tears, and 
agonies of his Redeemer, he beholds the 
severity of God. 

Now, if you refuse the mercy of God 
upon this footing, you will receive it 
upon no other. it is for Him the offended, 
and not for you the offending party, to 
dictate the terms of reconciliation. And 
He tells us that no man cometh unto the 
Father but by the Son—while all who 
enter into His presence by the open door 
of His Son’s mediatorship shall be saved. 
In other words you will never meet with 
acceptance from God, on the ground of 
His general mercy—while on the ground 
of His gospel mercy, you will never 
miss it. He is most ready to pardon, but 
not so as to extenuate the malignity of 
sin; and only so as to stamp the expres- 
sion of His uttermost hostility on that evil 
thing, whose guilt in you He is most 
willing to pass by. Should you, in the 
distaste and disinclination of your spirit 
to the cross of Christ, keep by your gen- 
eral confidence, and nauseate the evan- 
gelical confidence away from you— 
should you count only on God’s goodness 
to the simner, while you shut your eyes 
upon His severity against Sin, as: mani- 
fested in the death of His Son—then does 
it still remain, that His severity must be 
manifested in your own death and ever- 
lasting destruction. It is the grand pecu- 


| liarity of the gospel scheme, that while 


by it God hath come forth in love and 
tenderness to our world, He hath at the 
same time made full reservation of His 
dignity ; and, along with the freest over- 
tures of peace to the rebellious, there is 
the fullest reparation for every outrage 
which they have inflicted upon His gov- 
ernment. On this footing He welcomes 
you, but on no other. He will not pass 
over your transgressions of His law, but 
in such a way, as shall compel your 
recognition of the law’s unviolable right 
to all your obedience. He will not 
lavish upon you of His attribute of mercy, 
but in such a way,.as shall constrain 
your homage to all the other lofty and 


28 


unchangeable attributes of His nature. 
He will not let you off for your violation 
of his commandments, but in such a way, 
as shall stamp indelibly the lesson of the 
commandments’ unviolable sanctity.— 
This is that way of exquisite skilfulness, 
by which the economy of grace is charac- 
terised ; and whereby at once the deepest 
stigma is affixed upon sin, and the guilt of 
the sinner is wiped away. It is a way 
that God Himself has found out—but if 
you conform not thereto, though the sure, 
it is the only way of reconciliation ; and 
as you will not consent to take His good- 
mess in the shape that he offers it— 
nought remains but that with the un- 
believing Jews of my text, you shall be 
overtaken by the severity of God. 

But let us not leave off, without assur- 
ing you once more, that there is a path 
of escape from this catastrophe, and a 
path opened for you all. The flaming 
sword at the gate of Eden, turns every 
way to intercept your approach to the 
tree of life; and the gospel of Jesus Christ 
turns every way save one—but that one 
is a passage by which every creature 
who now hears us, is invited to make 
good his entrance dnto-the Paradise of 
God. ‘That severity of God, on which 
we have so much insisted, so far from 
lessening or casting a shade over His 
goodness, only heightens and enhances it 
the more. It had to struggle away for 
the manifestation of itself—amid the con- 
flict of all the other perfections of Deity. 
The mercy of the gospel is mercy in its 
highest possible exhibition—for it is a 
mercy that had to scale the barrier of 
such difficulties, as to every other eye but 
the eye of infinite wisdom looked imprac- 
ticable—it is a mercy that, ere it could 
reach the world, had to wait the under- 
taking of Him who went forth upon the 
embassy to seek and to save it—it is a 
mercy by which God, to spare those 
guilty who had affronted and despised 
him, spared not His well-beloved Son ; 
but endured the spectacle of that deep and 
mysterious agony, by which the penalties 
of a broken law were absolved, and the 
mighty problem was resolved of God be- 
ing just and yet the justifier of the un- 


godly. And now that the mercy of God | 


hath found its sure establishment on the 


GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD. 


[SERM, 


thority and His truth have all been pro- 
vided for; now that full demonstration 
has been,given to men and to angels, of 
a sovereignty that could not be trampled 
on, of a jurisprudence that could not be 
violated ; now that every let and hin- 
drance is removed from the way of His 
darling attribute, is a voice heard from 
the mercy-seat,—the sound whereof 
reaches to the most distant places of our 
world, and the purport whereof is to 
recall to that F’ather’s house from which 
they have departed, one and all of its 
alienated families. 


Ill. We must now conclude with a 
short practical application. And _ first, 
such is the goodness of God, that it over- 
passes the guilt even of the most daring 
and stout-hearted offender amongst you. 
Let him even have grown grey, in 
iniquity, there is still held out to him the 
offer of that peace-speaking o.ood in 
which there resides the specific virtue of 
washing it utterly away. These wards 
from the mouth of God Himself can yet 
be addrest to him, and to all who are in 
the body— Come now, let us reason 
together—though your sins be as 
crimson they shall become as wool, 
though they be-as scarlet, yet shall they 
be made whiter than the snow.” There 
is none here present, whose transgres- 
sions are so foul and so enormous as to 
be beyond the reach of the Saviour’s 
atonement. ‘There is none so sunk in 
ungodliness, or who have drunk so deeply - 
of the spirit of this world, that he may 
not, through Him who died the just for 
the unjust, be yet brought right and made 
alive unto God. ‘There is none or 
whom the load of Heaven’s displeasure 
hath so accumulated that he may not cast 
the whole of his burden on that founda- 
tion which is laid in Zion, and lightened 
of all his fears, may not rejoice in 
the presence of God as his reconcilet 
Father. ‘The very worst and most worth 
less among you are free to return unt 
Him—nay, have the word and the war 
rant of an express invitation ; and, how 
ever far you have wandered iu profligacy 
or shame from the sanctuary of His un. 
polluted holiness, still are you within the 
scope of his widely sounding call, “ Look 


foundation of his. vindicated honours;|unto me all ye ends of the earth and 
now that the high demands of His au- | be saved.” 


it] 


But again, in very proportion to this 
goodness will be the severity of God on 
‘hose who shall have rejected it. There 
is reconciliation to all who will—but, if 
ye will not, the heavier will be the ven- 
geance that awaiteth you. The kindness 
of God is still unquenched, even by your 
multiplied provocations of His broken 
law—but quenched it most assuredly will 
be, if to this you add the tenfold provoca- 
tion of His rejected gospel. ‘The dispensa- 
tion under which you sit is an alternative 
dispensation. ‘The word which cometh 
out of the mouth of the Son of God will 
be likened to a two-edged sword. There 
is good-will for all who turn towards 
him. There is wrath, more intense and 
jealous and unappeasable wrath, for all 
whoturnaway. He is the savour of life 
unto life—or he is the savour of death 
unto death. He is a tried and precious 
stone, by leaning upon whom, you are 
upheld on the firm ground of acceptance 
with God ; or He is a stone of stumbling 
on which you shall fall, or which falling 
upon you shall grind you to powder. 
“ Kiss the Son then now, and while: He 
is in the way, lest his wrath should begin 
to burn—when blessed only shall they be 
who have put their trust in Him.” 

And finally—let us warn you all, that 
no one truly embraces Christ as their 
Saviour, who does not submit to Him as 
their Master and their Lord. No one 
has a true faith in His promises, who is 
not faithful in the observation of His pre- 
cepts. No one has rightly taken refuge 
in Him from the punishment of a broken 
law, who still heedlessly and presumptu- 
ously gives himself up to the violation 





GOODNESS AND SEVEKI’Y OF GOT. — 


29 


of that law ; for then shall he be judged 
worthy of a severer punishment—seeing 
that he has trodden under foot the Son 
of God, and counted the blood of the 
covenant an unholy thing. Your ordi- 
nances are an abomination, and the share 
that you take in solemnities and in sacra- 
ments will only serve to mark the deeper 
hypocrisy of your souls—if you rise not 
from the table of commemoration more 
devoted to the will of Him who is the 
great Master of the feast, and over the 
symbols of whose broken body, and 
whose shed blood, you propose to wit- 
ness a good confession in the eyes of the 
world.* Draw near with a true heart, 
and He will draw near unto you. The 
very deliverance that He will give you 
from the fears of condemnation, will in- 
spire alacrity and vigour in the way of 
new obedience. The exchange that you 
shall make of the spirit of bondage for 
the spirit of adoption, will be the transla- 
tion of you into a new moral atmosphere 
—when you shall experience the differ- 
ence that there is between the services 
which are prompted by affection and 
gratitude, and those mercenary services 
which are compelled from the unwilling 
by the rod of authority. You will be 
endowed with another taste than that 
which actuates the children of this world: 
and, as a fruit of the regeneration that 
springeth from a real belief in the Sa- 
viour, you will serve Him because you 
love Him, and do His will because you 
delight to do Him honour. 


* Preached on the occasion of a Sacrament. 


SERMON IV. 


Salvation scarcely obtained even by the Righteous. 


‘And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear.”— 
1 peter. iv. 18. 


Tere are men of no less than three 
distinct classes of character who have all 
a part in this brief but most impressive 
warning. First, the righteous, of whom 
it is said that they scarcely shall be saved. 


ners; of whom it is asked, where shall 
they appear? The two last have one 
common resemblance ; but withal, they 
have certain separate characteristics, 
which it may be well to notice on the 


Secondly, the ungodly ; and thirdly, sin- | present occasion. 


30 


I. It is unnecessary to dwell on the 
signification of the term righteous in the 
passage before us—or to insist at any 
great length on the distinction which 
obtaims between the imputed and the per- 
sonal righteousness of those who believe. 
‘I'he one is perfect; and from the very 
first there is in it no scarceness, no short: 
coming. The second is frail and humble 
in Its commencement, doubtful and vari- 
ous in its progress, and has to struggle 
its uncertain way through defeats, and 
difficulties, and discouragements, ere it 
reaches its full consummation. By the 
one, we are delivered from the guilt of 
sin. By the other, we are delivered from 
the power of sin. In virtue of the mm- 
puted righteousness, our names are blotted 
out from that book of condemnation which 
is kept in the judicatory above. In virtue 
of the personal righteousness, the pollu- 
tion of sin is washed away from the heart 
—and there is a busy work of holiness 
going forward on each genuine and aspir- 
ing pilgrim below. It is a firm and im- 
mutable certainty, that if a man believe, 
he obtains a judicial righteousness in 
Christ. But it is just as firm a certainty, 
that if a man believe, he obtains a per- 
sonal righteousness in his own character. 
The one is just as indissolubly linked 
with his salvation as the other—and, if 
because gifted with the former, he rejoices 
in hope, and has a peace in his heart 
which passeth all understanding ; then, 
because gifted also with the latter, he 
plies with utmost diligence and labour 
ail the activities of the christian service, 
alike instant in duty and watchfulness 
and prayer. 

Now, it is obvious, both from the text 
and from the context, that it is by their 
personal characteristics that the righteous 
are contrasted with the ungodly and the 
sinner. The judgment which begins 
with the former and ends with the latter, 
is a judgment which takes cognizance of 
personal qualities alone. On that day we 
shall be reckoned with for our doings— 
and the respective awards of the judg- 
ment-seat will proceed on the distinction, 
on the personal distinction which there is 
between them who obey and them who 
obey not. So that, in looking forward to 
that judgment-seat, our great aim should 
be to perfect our obedience, and to be 
diligent, that we may be found of Chr’st 


SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. 


SERM. 


in peace without spot and blameless. It 
is thus, in fact, that we work out our sal- 
vation ; not salvation from the punish- © 
ment of sin, for this is effected by the 
blood of Christ’s atoning sacrifice—but 
salvation from the poilution and the power 
of sin, which is effected by our striving 
mightily according to the grace of God 
which worketh in us mightily. It is in the 
arduous prosecution of this work, that 
man presses onward to a mark for a 
prize, and feels how all his power and 
strength must be embarked in the under- 
taking, lest he should fall short of it; 
that, with much study and much strenu- 
ousness, he tries to bring himself nearer 
every day to an object which still lies in 
the distance before him ; that, yet far be- 
neath the summit of moral or spiritual 
perfection to which he is’ aspirmg, he 
plies his toilsome ascent along the nar- 
row and the rugged path by which he is 
led to it. And so, the images- employed 
in scripture for the work of christianity, 
are expressive of most intense and sus- 
tained effort towards an attainment which 
after all may not be realised—a battle 
which requires complete armour, and 
the busy use of it, in order to secure the 
doubtful victory—a race which many 
run, but in which few will gain the 
rize—a narrow path, by which many 
shall seek to pass through the gate of 
life and not be able, and by which the 
few only who strive shall make good 
their entrance into the paradise of God. 
It is by dint of painful and assiduous 
striving that salvation is at length car- 
ried ; and just as the courser may be said 
scarcely to have won, who, with the utmost 
of his power and fleetness hath made 
good his distance by a hair-breadth of 
space, or within a moment of time, so it 
is said of the righteous by the apostle in 
our text, that scarcely they are saved. 
Now the question we have to put upon 
all this is, whether the righteous of our 
day, or those who deem themselves to 
be so, are really comporting themselves 
in a way answerable to such a represen- 
tation? Are they running, so as that 
they may obtain? Are they fighting, so 


‘as that they may gain a hard-won vie- 


tory? Are they striving, so as that they 
may force an entrance of great obstruc: 
tion and difficulty? Where, we ask, are 
there any symptoms of a work and of 


v.] 


a warfare, or of that busy earnestness 
which a state of probation like ours would 
seem so imperiously to demand? There 


is a whole host of people, we are aware, | 


who do stand forth and signalize them- 
selves as the Religionists of the day. 
- But amid all the pretence and profession 
by which they are distinguished, where 
1s the practical exercise? Where the 
strenuous, the sustained effort that cometh 
out of desirous hearts and doiag hands ? 
How many or how few are there of these 
who are diligently plying at the real task- 
work of christianity ?—who are making 
a business of their sanctification ?—who 
are labouring fer Heaven, as if pursued 
by the conviction that without labour they 
will never make it out, and that even after 
their utmost labour, they will but save 
their distance, and scarcely reach the 
goal which they are tending to? Surely, 
if they proceeded on this view of the mat- 
ter, their appearance altogether would be 
that of men upon the stretch—of men, 
all whose faculties were pressed into a 
mighty service—of men in a state of 
zonstant and great urgency, on a way 
peset with many obstacles, and their 
_ progress through which required the 
‘orthputting of all their strength, and 
of all their busy expedients. Now we 
scarcely see this degree of intensity 
any where. Not certainly among all, if 
niibed among any, of those who are 
called the professing people. ‘They have 
more the semblance of men who have 
been lulled to sleep by the sound of a 
pleasant song, than of men who have 
been roused into action by a spirit-stirring 
call. ‘Their orthodoxy has acted rather 
as a sedative than a stimulant. It has 
cradled them into a state of repose rather 
than brought them out into a state of 
exertion. ‘They are more like men un- 
der the power of an opiate, than of men 
who, awoke from lethargy, and now in 
the attitude of readiness for service, have 
their loins girded about and their lamps 
burning. 

Christianity is grievously misunder- 
stood, whenever it is imagined that all 
this activity and labour are not called for. 
They are sadly misled by their creeds 
and their systems, who fancy the death 
of Christ to be that terminating object, in 
which the believer has only to rest and 
do nothing. Instead of this, it is the 


SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. 


3a 


| starting-post of a busy career, whence 
the Christian breaks forth with hope and 
alacrity on all the services of a new obe: ’ 
dience. Christ gave himself for us,’ 
says the apostle, “ that he might redeem 
us from all iniquity, aud purify unto him- 
self a peculiar people zealous of good 
works.” ‘The faith of the gospel so en: 
larges the heart, as to make him by whom 
it is actuated, run in the way of the com: 
mandments. There is nought, surely, 
of indolence in this. The work which 
it is given a Christian to do, is not a work 
done so easily, that it may be lightly, or 
carelessly, or superficially gone about— 
but a work done with such exceeding 
difficulty, that they who do accomplish 
it, accomplish it but scarcely, and so it is 
but scarcely that they are saved, 

‘To keep the heart with all diligence— 
‘to keep the heart in the love of God—to 
dwell with ever-recurring contemplation 
on those objects of faith by which grati- 
tude and affectionate loyalty, and all the 
purposes of new obedience are upholden 
—to keep a strict and resolute guardian- 
ship over the inner man, amid the temp- 
tations by which it is both plied from 
without, and most insidiously operated 
upon from within—-to watch over the 
infirmities of temper, the perpetual aber- 
rations of selfishness and vanity—to 
follow after peace when surrounded by 
provocatives to war, to maintain charity 
in the midst of cruelest provocations—to 
be patient under calumny and _ injustice; 
and master that most difficult of all 
achievements, the love of enemies who 
have hurt or affronted or betrayed us—to 
bid away all the incitements of sensuality, 
so as both to have purity in the heart and 
temperance in the habits, in the presence 
of a thousand besetting solicitations: In 
addition to these labours of the unseen 
Spirit, to fill the whole history with the 
doings of a visible obedience—to labour 
in our closets, to labour in our families, 
to labour in the ordinances of religion, to 
labour in the attentions and the offices of 
social intercourse, to labour in the visita- 
tions of liberality and kindness, to labour 
yet with a spirit schooled out of all its 
worldliness in the business of our callings 
—these, these are the tests of Christianity 
here; and these, when done to the glory 
of God, and in the name of Jesus, will be 
the triumphs of Christianity hereafter 





o2 


‘These are the treasures laid up for us in 
Hleaven—not as forming our title-deed to 
that glorious inheritance of the saints, but 
as forming our meetness for its exercises 
and its joys. All the possible acts and 
virtues of humanity put together, cannot 
baild up a claim to Heaven; but they 
build up the indispensable character of 
Heaven. They compose not that im- 
puted righteousness of Christ which is 
the meritorious plea; but they compose 
that personal righteousness of his disciples 
which is their essential preparation. 
And it is the magnitude of that prepara- 
tion ; it is the loftiness, the spirituality of 
that law, with the graces and perfections 
of which they are called upon to clothe 
themselves; it is the mighty range or 
extent of a commandment whereof the 
Psalmist says, that it is exceeding broad 
—these make the work and the labour 
of Christianity such that it scarcely can 
be done—these, as constituting the salva- 
tion of believers from sin unto righteous- 
ness, give emphatic truth to the saying, 
that the righteous scarcely can be saved. 

Now the first class of believers who 
ought to feel the force of this representa- 
tion, are they who have embraced the 
faith of the gospel. What an impressive 
warning to all such that it is but scarcely 
they shall be saved! You may win, but 
hardly, and as if within a hair-breadth. 
Now to make this out, are you working 
hardly 2 Does your seeking amount to 
any thing like striving? Are you at all 
like men putting forth your whole might 
for carrying some point of difficulty ? 
When the fortress stands in a position that 
is nearly impregnable, we find that all 
the strength and all the tactics of besieg- 
ers are put forth in the business of storm- 
ing it. Is the kingdom of Heaven, we 
ask, suffering this violence at your hands; 
and where are your high resolves, your 
busy expedients, your struggles and your 
onsets for taking it by force? Where 
are your ardent prayers for strength; 
and then, the stirring up or the putting 
forth of that strength which is in you for 
great and arduous performances? And, 
do you watch as wellas pray? It is not 
the devotion of a little time in the morn- 
ing, followed up by an utter relaxation of 
spirit through the day—lIt is not the 
observation of all the Sabbath punctuali- 
ties followed up by a week of earthliness 


SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. 





[SERM. 


—It is not the sacramental decency, or 
even the sacramental fervour, followed up 
by a year, throughout the general tenor . 
of which, you breathe like other men the 
air of this world’s business and this 
world’s companionship—It is not thus 
that you acquit yourselves like servants, 
who, as if under the immediate eye of 
Heaven, are working and waiting for 
their Lord. Awaken, awaken, then all 
ye, who sit at ease in Zion, if ye would 
escape the fearfulness which shali over- | 
take the hypocrite, the doom of those who 
say, Lord, Lord, while they do not the 
things which he says. 


II. Now if such be the ordeal which 
even the righteous must undergo, what 
must become of the ungodly? If the 
former can scarcely pass the judgment in 
safety, how is it possible that in that judg- - 
ment the latter can stand? It begins, it 
would appear, at the hotise of God, and 
there it so searches and scrutinizes, that 
it is but hardly and by a little way, that 
many, even of Christ’s own: disciples, 
shall be found on the right side of the line 
of demarcation. It ends with those who 
stand afar off from the precincts of holi- 
ness or of heaven, and among them it 
will be a consuming fire. If the saints, 
with all their prayers and pains and 
struggles upon earth, shall but have won 
their distance by a hair-breadth, and by 
their much strenuousness have forced, 
and scarcely forced their admittance 
within the door of the kingdom—ah! 
what will become of those sinners, the 
care of whose souls cost them no strenu- 
ousness, who live here as they list, and 
make this evanescent world their resting- 
place, without an effort or a wish beyond 
it. Surely, if among God’s own people 
the sacred jealousy of His nature act 
as a refiner’s fire, to separate the almost 
from the altogether Christian, it must go 
forth in one mighty and devouring tide 
of conflagration among the hosts of the 
rebellious. | 

Our purpose in distinguishing the un- 
godly and the sinners into two classes, is 
if possible to excite salutary alarm in the 
breasts of those, who imagine of them- 
selves that they are not sinners— 
who at least imagine of themselves 
that they are not in danger, because 
in reputation and good will among men, 


i.) 
they are free from the disgrace of all 
gross and notorious delinquencies. They 
lie not. They steal not. They oppress 
not the poor; nor do they violate either 
the equities of business or the proprieties 
of good neighbourhood. It is a most fre- 
quent, nay a most natural delusion among 
such, that they are not great sinners— 
and for this best of all reasons that they 
are chargeable with no greatsins. ‘They 
will not admit the magnitude of their 
guilt—neither will they admit the mag- 
nitude of their danger, till some specific 
or definite transgression can be alleged 
against them. In the absence of these 
they feel a complacency in their present 
state, and are visited with no disturbance 
at least, in the contemplation of their 
future prospects. They stand alike ex- 
empted from remorse and terror. And 
it serves to foster this tranquillity of spirit 
more, if to the absence of all which they 
deem to be positively bad, they add the 
presence of much that is positively good 
in their charazter—if they be amiable in 
the relations of domestic and social life, 
if they be kind and companionable 
among their fellows, if they be erect and 
untainted in honour, if they be trusty in 
friendship, if they be devoted in patriot- 
_ ism. 

‘These are the virtues which uphold, 
nay beautify the societies of the earth— 
but what we affirm of one and all of them 
is, that they do coexist with ungodliness. 
- Along with the-presence of these social 
moralities, there may be the absence or 
utter destitution of all the sacred morali- 
ties. That isa pleasing light which is 
struck out by the mere workings of in- 
stinct in the hearts and among the habit- 
ations of men. But it differs from that 
light which cometh down from the upper 
sanctuary. The one is no more like to 
the other than the tiny lustre of the glow- 
worm is like unto the firmament’s merid- 
ian blaze. ‘There may be nought of the 
celestial in this earth-born virtue ; and it 
is a possible, nay a frequent, thing that 
men shall live and breathe in its atmos- 
phere, yet live without God. 

Now, it is for the sake of grouping 
these men into a company by themselves, 
that we view the ungodly of our text, as 
separate from the sinners of our text. 
They in truth form a distinct class of 
society—accomplished, and perhaps bril- 

5 . 


SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. 


33 


liantly accomplished in the moralities of 
earth, yet without one thought or one 
visitation in their spirits of any practical 
earnestness about the heaven that lies 
beyond it—free of all those sins which 
would be termed delinquencies in the 
world, yet most surely as free of all de- 
votedness in their hearts to Him who 
made the world—surrounded by the re- 
gards of kindness and the obeisances of 
respect in their neighbourhood below, 
yet living in a perpetual exile of the 
affections from Him who is above, at 
once the Father and the Judge of the 
human family—lulled into complacency 
by the thought of the many duties and 
the many decencies whereof they acquit 
themselves, yet hastening onward to that 
day of account, when tried by the ques- 
tion, “ What have you done unto God 2” 
they shall be left witnout a speech and 
without an argument. Surely, if they 
who have cared and striven and sought 
after God all their days, yet after all are 
but scarcely saved—well may it be asked, 
what shall become of those who have 
never cared? If with the one there be 
such difficulty of salvation, what are we 
to conclude of the other, but that with 
them there is the certainty of damnation ? 
If it be with so much ado that the right- 
eous pass through the ordeal of: their 
coming judgment, how is it possible that 
the ungodly can stand ? 

We are not charging you with aught 
which the world would call monstrous. 
We charge you only with the negatives 
of character. You have no practical, no 
perpetual sense of God. We are not 
speaking of your vices. We speak only 
of your defects. You are deficient from 
searedness. It is not by your profliga- 
cies, but simply by your negations that 
we describe you. You have no godli- 
ness, or you are ungodly. Your con- 
sciences can tell, whether such be a just 
representation of yourselves. It can make 
palpable the difference between the habit 
of your souls, and that of those whose 
eye, and the aspiration of whose heart, 
are ever towards the upper sanctuary— 
whose delight is in communion with 
God, and whose chief dread it is to offend 
Him—who bear upon their spirits at all 
times a reverential impression of His 
sacredness ; and who strive, with all their 
vigour and all their vigilance, to uphold 


34 


SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. 


[SERN 


that frame of the affections, which most|the thunders of His righteous condem- 


befits the expectant of heaven, and best 
prepares for its holy services. You can 
best say if it be thus with you; and 
whether you now realise those longings 
and those labourings of the life of faith, 
by which all the feelings of the imner 
man, and all the doings of the outer man, 
are consecrated to the business of a high 
calling. Even they who are the most 
strenuous and the most devoted in this 
business of piety—even they but scarcely 
shall be saved ; and what, we repeat, can 
become of those, who, from their cradles 
to their graves, do but grovel in the dust 
of that earth which they tread upon, and 
live without God in the world ? 

Think not then, that you might sleep 
on in safety because you have had no 
crimes. That judgment which shall at 
length awaken you, will fall in weighti- 
est vengeance upon your head, if it but 
find you in a state of negation and naked- 
ness. You fancy, that you have done 
nothing against God. But it is enough 
that you have lived without God. You 
are not conscious of such disobedience as 
any distinct or specific act of rebellion. 
But enough, that you have not yielded 
obedience to His reign. It will be vain 
to allege that you never were a rebel 
against Him, if He can allege that He 
never had the rule over you. They are 
your own wills that have ruled you. It 
is by the waywardness of your own 
affections that you have walked. It may 
not have been on a way of profligacy or 
ona way of scandalous frofaneness ; but 
still it was your own way, and not His 
way. You have carried itall your lives 
long, independently of God. Perhaps 
without any gross violation of the decen- 
cies of life, but then you have a taste for 
decency. Perhaps without any glaring 
infraction of the integrities of business ; 
but then, you have a native principle of 
integrity. Perhaps with an_ habitual 
homage to the voice of society, and even 
an occasional homage to the voice of your 
own conscience; but reckless all the 
while to the voice of God, and relatively 
to Him, in as deep a slumber of uncon- 
sciousness as if He were a nonentity or 
a phantom. Now, you refuse to hear 
the voice of His rightful authority ; and 
so afterwards you shall be made to hear 








nation. 


IIL. So much for the subtle delusion 
of those who are ungodly, but feel not 
themselves to be sinners—and just be- 
cause, whatever may be the hidden delin- 
quencies of their spirit, there are no spe- 
cific delinquencies of outward conduct 
with the matter of which they are charge- 
able. He who ventures upon the latter. 
kind of disobedience, belongs to a distinct 
genus of character from that of mere un- 
godliness. And hence the distinction we 
would make between the ungodly and 
the sinner. The one simply cares not 
for God. ‘The other, more resolute, lifts 
against Him an open defiance. The one, 
led by his own will, can perhaps only be 
charged with the distance of his affec- 
tions from the person or character of 
God. The other, in formal and active 
resistance to the Divine will, may be 
charged with the despite dene by his 
actions to the authority of God. The 
one is only disaffected. The other is 
more, he is disobedient: and while the 
former is but upon the neutral ground 
of indifference to God, the latter has 
planted his daring footstep within the 
distinct and the declared landmark of a 
forbidden territory. Such is the differ- 
ence between him who is ungodly, and 
him who is a transgressor. ‘The one is 
destitute of the feeling of loyalty. The 
other, more stoutly rebellious, hath broken 
the laws. He hath more outraged Hea- 
ven’s high sovereignty. He hath more 
braved, and bid defiance to the authority 
of God. : 

It is the more visible nature of his de- 
linquency which lays him opener to the 
conviction of sin, than the man of decent 
morality, yet withal rooted ungodliness ; 
and thus also would we explain the de- 
claration of Christ, that -publicans and 
sinners enter the kingdom of heayen be- 
fore the Pharisees. They are more easily 
conscience-stricken, just because their sins 
are more conspicuous. ‘Their fraud, or 
their falsehood, or their drunkenness, or 
their impurity, or their sabbath profana- 
tions, or their blasphemies, or their acts 
of oppression and violence; these are 
more glaring insignia of revolt against 
the government of Heaven, than is the’ 


Iv.] 


latent, the lurking ungodliness of a 
worldly moralist—even though it should 
leaven his whole heart, and thoroughly 
‘impregnate every deed of his history. 
Both will be reckoned with on the great 
day of manifestation—the one by the 
secret things of his heart, which shall 
then be revealed ; the other by the deeds 
lone in his body, which shall then be 
judged. But the inward secrets may not 
ae palpable now while the outward deeds 
are abundantly so. ‘The apostle makes 
a distinction between those sins which 
are open before-hand, and those which 
follow after. It is a distinction realized 
oy the ungodly and the sinner of our 
‘ext. The rebellion of the former has 
its firm though unseen hold im the re- 
cesses of his bosom ‘The rebellion of 
the latter is written in such characters 
upon his forehead as may be seen and 
read of all men. | 

It is thus, that while often difficult to 
awaken conviction in the hearts of the 
mere ungodly—the heart of the sinner 
may be reached by reading to him in 
the deeds of his history his own char- 
acter; and by reading to him, in the 
character of these deeds, the tremendous 
destiny which awaits him, It is thus 
that we would try to lay an arrest on the 
career of the transgressor. We would 
appeal to his own consciousness of his 
own doings. We would remind him of 
the sabbaths that he has violated, or of 
the execrations that he has poured forth, 
or of the impurities and excesses that he 
has indulged in, or of the dishonesties in 
business that he has committed, or of the 
relative duties that he has broken, or of 
the calumnies, whether heedless or ma- 
lignant, wherewith he has soiled a neigh- 
bour’s reputation. 


" SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. 


We need not speak | 


35 


to him ef the ungodliness that is in his 
heart, when things like these have broken 
out upon his history—the overt-acts of 
rebellion—the expressions of a distinct 
and declared warfare against Heaven’s 
throne. And O, if he but knew the in- 
violable sacredness of Him who sitteth 
thereon—of Him whose eyes are as a 
flame of fire, and before the rebuke of 
whose countenance all the derision and 
defiance of the hardiest in wickedness 
must at length melt away—surely he 
would judge it better to recall himself in 
time, than to appear with all the aggra- 
vations of his uncancelled guilt before 
the judgment-seat. The voice of wel- 
come and of good-will still calls upon 
him from his mercy-seat ; and that God, 
the book of whose remembrance is laden 
with the record of his misdoings, is still 
willing that they shall all be blotted out 
in the blood of the great atonement: and 
if he will only break off his sins by 
righteousness and turn him to Christ-who 
is mighty to save, the way of renovation 
is yet open; and the great Lawgiver, 
whom he has so often offended, beckons 
him to draw nigh and taste of His gra- 
ciousness Such is the offer now: but 
let both the sinner and the ungodly re- 
collect, that this season of opportunity 
will soon pass away. The invitations 
of God’s tenderness will give piace, and 
that speedily, to the terrors of a vengeance 
which will burn all the more fiercely be. 
cause of a slighted gospel, and a rejected 
Saviour. Be alive then to the urgency 
of the present call, to the power and the 
encouragement of the present invitation. 
KKiss the Son while He is in the way— 
lest his wrath should begin to burn— 
when blessed only shall they be who 
have put their trust in Him. 


SERMON V. 


On the Spirit's striving with Man. 


“ And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man.”—Gen. vi. 3. 


Wuen man is prevailed on to follow 
the call of the Gospel, he does it on the 
impulse of certain considerations. In- 
terest, for example, may have some share 


in moving him to this step; but this it 
could not have, unless he saw his interest 
to be involved in it—or, in other words, 
unless he believed in the unseen matters 


36 


of a judgment and an eternity. Duty 
may have some share in moving him; 
but this it could not have, unless he was 
visited with a relenting sense of his obli- 
gation to that God, whose will he had so 
often. forgotten, and whose requirements 
he had so often trampled on—or, in other 
words, unless the conscience were made 
more tender, and the heart of stone were 
made more soft and susceptible than it 
ever had been, up to the decisive moment 
of his embarking his every desire and 
his every purpose, on that path of obedi- 
ence which leads to the Jerusalem above. 
Now, it is to be remarked, that all the 
considerations both of duty and of in- 
terest might be presented to a multitude 
of people in the same language, with the 
same impressiveness of tone and of vehe- 
ment affection on the part of the speaker, 
and with all the same external advan- 
tages on the part of the hearer ; and yet, 
in point of fact, there is not a more fami- 
dar exhibition of human nature, than 
that the movement of the very same 
engine should carry along with it a pre- 
vailing influence on certain individuals 
of this. multitude, while, with certain 
others, the influence felt at the time and 
acted on for the time, is at length lost 
and overborne amongst the concerns of 
the world, and the urgency of its mani- 
fold temptations. 

Now, there must be a cause for this 
difference; and it is not enongh, to assign 
as the cause the mere variety of original 
character and constitution among those, 
who are within the reach of a hearing. 
There can be no doubt that this has an 
effect ; but still the effect is not such as 
may not be completely overruled, by a 
cause that is paramount to all the pre- 
vious varieties. of character whatever, and 
a cause that can get the better of all the 
resistance which the hardiest and the 
worldiest of minds may offer to the power 
of that truth which is brought to bear 
upon it. ‘There are repeated instances, 
in the history of the church, of the un- 


likeliest and most stubborn of men, sur-. 


rendering themselves to the power of a 
gospel argument, which has fallen on 
the conscience of one who had apparcntly 
a more impressible constitution, without 
fruit and without efficacy. And to sus- 
pend you no longer on this topic, we give 
it. you as one of the. clearest announce- 


THE SPIRIT’S STRIVING WITH MAN. 


[SERM, 


ments of Scripture—that while, in the 
administration of Heaven’s kingdom 
upon earth, the bible, and the minister, — 
and the various ordinances of religion, 
are set agoing as so many visible instru- 
ments for turning man from the power 

of Satan unto God—it is that spirit which 
bloweth where He listeth, who gives to 
these instruments all their success, and 

all their energy. And, without stopping 
at present to resolve all the interesting 
questions which follow in the train of 

this most important doctrine, we feel, 
that we are only uttering the words of 

God’s own authoritative revelation, when 
we say, that, wherever an impression is 

kindled in a human bosom on the side of | 
what is right, or penitent, or pious, there, 
through the medium of some secondary 

cause or other, the Spirit of God has been 
at work. And im every movement of 

conscience, in every pang of self-reproach, 
in every visitation of a compunctious ten- 
derness, in every conception of a better 
purpose, in every longing of the soul 
after a conformity to the law of heaven, 

in every upward aspirmg of the heart 
under all the darkness and all the passiun 
by which it is encompassed, do we recog- 

nize a manifestation of the Spirit’s influ- 

ence, a trace of His unseen but most un- 

doubted agency,*a struggle in that con- 
test which is now going on between the 
powers of heaven and of hell for the 

dominion of this world; and upon the 

issue of which contest in the soul of each 

individual it will depend, whether he re- 
main in captivity to the spirit that now 

worketh in the children of disobedience ; 

or renewed in his mind by the power of 

the Holy Ghost, he be rescued from that 

universal wreck which has come upon 

the species, and be exalted into a monu- 

ment of that Redeemer’s triumphs, who 

has undertaken the work of our deliver- 

ance, and, for that greatness of strength 

which He put forth is the execution of 

it, has obtained for His reward, that He 

shall see of the travail of His soul and 

be satisfied. 

Now it may require some attention 
from you, to perceive the precise kind of 
responsibility, which this view of the 
matter lays on one and on all of us. 
Were a charge committed to me by some 
rightful superior in an unknown tongue, 
I incur no fault towards him, though } 


Vid 


fail to acquaint myself of the articles of 
this charge. But conceive an interpreter 
to. step in between me and him, and 
to translate the whole of his instructions 
into my vernacular language; and then 
should I persist in my neglect, I land 
myself in all the guilt of disobedience. 
Or, what brings it still nearer to the topic 
on hand, conceive me to be labouring 
under such a deafness, that I cannot pos- 
sibly hear the feeble voice of my master, 
as he delivers his commission to me; 
but that 1 am able to understand it by 
the more powerful enunciation of a third 
person, who acts as an assistant in this 
business of communication betwixt us. 
Or, what perhaps is a still more precise 
approximation, conceive me to be igno- 
rant of the authority and blind to the 
claims of him who is laying his com- 
mands upon me; but that another ex- 
plains the matter so as to make me sensi- 
ble of his moral and legitimate right 
to the whole of my obedience. Then 
you can be at no loss to feel, how, what- 
ever palliations might be devised for my 
want of subordination to the will of my 
superior, had there been no intermediate 
link of interpretation, or of exposition, or 
of audible conveyance betwixt us—yet, 
with such a link, every such palliation is 
done away ; and the mare faithfully and 
laboriously and patiently the office of an 
interpreter has been discharged, the more 
does it go to aggravate the blame of him, 
who, with all these advantages, still 
refuses the rightful call of his rightful su- 
perior, and turns in contempt and diso- 
bedience away from him. 

Now it would suspend our immediate 
object, did we attempt at present what we 
think can be done by the united force of 
reason and Scripture, to pour the light of 
a thorough explicitness into all the sub- 
tleties of this interesting argument. We 
will not therefore say at present, in how 
far man, because labouring as he does 
under a moral blindness of perception, 
and sunk in all the stupidity of a consti- 
tutional alienation from God, is, on that 
~ account, to be held less guilty of rebellion 
against Him by his life of prone and 
habitual disobedience. But, sure we are, 
that it would take away from the whole 
force of the apology, were some secret 
and invisible power to open at times the 
eye of his mind to the high titles and au- 


THE SPIRIT STRINING .WITH MAN. 


37 
thority of the Godhead ; and he with his 


eyes so open, to put his daring footstep. 
on that forbidden grouhd which is fenced 
about by the prohibitions of the Divine 
law. Or, were this power to touch his 
heart by some sense of dutiful obligation 
to his Maker ; and he, stifling the whole 
of its urgency, were to forbear an en- 
trance upon the way of the command- 
ments. Or were this power to lay before 
him, in clear and resistless manifestation, 
the spectacle of an inviting God, plying 
His wandering prodigal with all the ten- 
derness of entreaty, and assuring him on 
the pledge of His own Son given up to 
the death for us, that if he turn in repent- 
ance to the God he has strayed from, all 
will be forgiven and all will be forgotten ; 
and he, unmoved out of his obstinacy by 
the whole weight of this fatherly expos- 
tulation, were to refuse the proffered kind- 
ness, and unmindful of the call from 
heaven, were to walk in the counsel of 
his own heart and in the sight of his own 
eyes. Now there is such a power at 
work with us all. We see Him not, but 
we have the experience of His agency in 
the effect it has on our hearts and con- 
sciences. This is the only way in which 
His interference may have been at all 
sensible ta you—even by a movement of 
conscience, when it pointed to you the 
path of duty, or charged on you the guilt 
of your manifold deviations. All of you 
must have the remembrance of such 
movements. ‘There is not one of you, 
who has not felt in your past history, 
a visitation of this kind on your ever busy 
and ever thinking spirits. And there is 
not one of you who has been in the habit 
of resisting these visitations, who does not 
feel, how, in the progress of this resist- 
ance, the moral sense gets more languid 
in its admonitions; and the monitor 
within emits a gentler voice; and the 
impression of the present guilt and the 
future danger is ever decaying into a 
fainter and a feebler influence ; and that 
horror at sin, which was fresh and pow: 
erful at the outset of life, is subsiding 
into a hardened insensibility ; and, for 
the tenderness of youthful conscience, 
and youthful apprehension, there is now 
perhaps the front of an audacious rebel- 
lion—an iron remorselessness of soul 
which can now sin for itself without a 
sigh, and behold the sin of others without 


38 


one movement of concern or of sympa- 
thy. Now if you look no farther than to 
the phenomenon* of conscience within 
you, you will look on this as the natural 
progress of its hardening ; and on this 
progress, an argument may be founded 
for immediate repentance. But the Bible 
teaches us to look farther. It connects 
every phenomenon both of matter and of 
mind, with the invisible power which 
gives birth to it. It refers every moral 
movement towards God in the heart of 
man, to the visitation of God’s Spirit, 
acting the part of an enlightener or ad- 
viser or persuasive monitor, who plies 
His suggestions and His arguments with 
the men of a perverse and obstinate gen- 
eration. And thus it is that we are 
called to grieve not the Spirit, to quench 
not the Spirit, to provoke not the Spirit to 
abandon us to our own wilfulness, to 
make not the Spirit angry by our con- 
tempt for His warnings and our resist- 
ance to the voice of His authority. It is 
alarming indeed, to be told of the natural 
progress of the conscience, in becoming 
hardier and more insensible by every act 
of resistance to its dictates. But it forms 
a distinct and a powerful addition to the 
argument, when we think of these dic- 
tates being set forth by the Spirit of God, 
who is a willing and a knowing and 
a living and a personal agent; that we 
by our resistance tire His patience, and 
tempt Him to leave us to ourselves, and 
bring hardness down upon our hearts 
in the way of a judgment; if that to-day 
we hear not His voice He may not come 
to-morrow, or if He do come may knock 
more deafly than ever at the door of our 
hearts, and emit a fainter and a feebler 
whispering ; that if now we mind not the 
things which belong to our peace, He 
will become less loud and less frequent in 
His admonitions, He will gradually die 
away from us into a final departure, He 
will let us alone, and leave us to the per- 
verseness of our own ways and the infat- 
‘ation of our own counsels. 

The first argument for immediate re- 
pentance turns upon the fact, that the 
soul, by every fresh act of resistance 
against the admonitions of conscience, 
gathers the metal of a stouter and a hard- 
ler resistance in alltime coming. The 


THE SPIRIT'S STRIVIN. 





WITH MAN. {SERM. 
coming less powerful, and less frequent, 
and less urgent in its admonitions; and 
if you connect these admonitions with 
the living and the personal agent, who, 
by whispering to the human mind 
through the organ of conscience, is the 
real though unseen author of all its sug- 
gestions—you bring every individual 
amongst us into the same relation with 


the Spirit of God, that subsists between _ 


him who lies under certain duties and 
obligations, and him who fulfils the office 
of his friendly and advising superior. 
The Spirit takes upon Himself the office 
of persuading us to all that is most right- 
eous towards God, and of course to al] 
that is most beneficial to ourselves. In 
the discharge of this office, there is the 
exercise of much kindness and patience 
and tender benevolence. If we act faith- 
fully and zealously on the advice of this 
day, He will treat us as hopeful subjects 
for the advice of another day. He will 
persevere in His services, and reiterate 
His admonitions; and to us who have 
made a right use of the teaching we have 
received, more will be given. And this 
harmonizes with all that we experience 
of the visible effect of this invisible influ- 
ence. He who betakes himself most 
scrupulously to the following of his con- 
science, is every day receiving from it 
the light of clearer and more abundant 
intimations. The monitor within be- 
comes every day, by reason of use, more 
judicious and enlightened; and more 
able to indicate the path of duty, and to 
lead us a clear and a confident way 
through all the embarrassments of a 
darkening casuistry ; and, in return, as 
it were, for our faithful application of its 
more elementary lessons, does it deal 
them out in larger and surer and more 
abundant manifestations. The consci- - 
entious performance of what we do know, 
is rewarded by a more satisfying revela- 
tion of what we do not know. And thus 
it is, that we so often behold the progress 
of a true believer, to be from the fearful 
scrupulosities of a yet unsettled and un- 
confirmed babe in Christ, to that firm 
purpose, that intrepid decision, that bold 
and immediate energy of conduct, which 
bespeak the full assurance of a mind that 
knoweth the right from the wrong, and 


second argument turns upon the fact that | promptly betakes itself to the line of its 
the conscience itself is every day be-|own just and righteous determination 


wy 


If any man keep my sayings to him will 
I manifest myself. If any man serve 
me, he shall not walk in darkness but 
ehall have the light of life. These and 
_ such as these are most interesting passa- 
ges. They unfold the connexion which 
the Author of the Gospel has established, 
between advancing obedience and ad- 
vancing spiritual discernment. Follow 
out the dictates that have already been 
clearly put forth to you; and this will 
be followed up by a more copious supply 
of instruction than you have ever yet re- 
ceived. Wall after the present leadings 
of your conscience, or rather of the Spirit 
to whem conscience is the organ or chan- 
nel of conveyance; and He will lead you 
still farther: And thus it is, that you 
grow from the first rudiments of the 
Christian practice, to the strength and 
the stature of manhood ; and are carried 
forward from the tottering feebleness of 
one who is im the infancy of his acquire- 
ments, till you are made to stand perfect 
and complete in the whole will of God. 
Now mark the opposite result of that 
conduct, by which we turn a deaf ear to 
the voice that is within us. We not only 
disobey the voice, but we stifle it. In the 
whole of this business we have to do with 
one who is pleased with our attention to 
Him, and rewards it by the growing 
clearness and frequency of His intima- 
tions. But should we withhold our at- 
tention, He in time will withhold His 
intimations. My Spirit will not always 
strive with the children of men. It is 
thus it will be found in the great day of 
account that He is clear of the blood of 
all the families upon earth. It will be 
found that over the whole face of an 
alienated world, deep as its spirit of slum- 
ber may be about the things of God, it 
will be found that He has done enough 
to awaken it. It will be found, that, 
with the mighty instruments of the law 
written in the heart and the law written 
in the record of heaven’s messengers, He 
has made His ample round through all 
the tribes of this world’s accountable 
population, and has knocked at the door 
of every consciences and there is not a 
man who will have Him to blame for 
the undoing of his eternity. He has 
given to each some distinct suggestions 
or other, which he himself- felt to be in- 
vested with all the authority of a right- 


THE SPIRIT’S STRIVING WITH MAN. 


39 


ful command; and which, had he fol- 
lowed, the spirit of God would still have 
kept by him and plied*him with his fur- 
ther communications. But he did not 
follow it, clear as it was even to his own 
sense of right and wrong; and therefore 
it is, that on that great and decisive day, 
his condemnation will have a clear prin- 
ciple to rest upon. He will be tried by 
the light that was put within his reach, 
and which was withdrawn from him 
only because he had not the uprightness 
and the morality to walk in it; and 
therefore it is that in him is fulfilled the 
saying, that he who hath not, from him 
shall be taken away even that which he 
hath. And thus it is, that every act of 
known and wilful disobedience, throws a 
darkening cloud over the path of duty ; 
and smothers the admonitions of the in- 
ward voice; and makes the Spirit of God 
less frequent in His Visitations; and 
hastens to the soul that awful consumma- 
tion of being let alone, or of being finally 
abandoned to its own desperate impent- 
tency. And therefore do we urge you 
to follow out every one step and purpose 
of repentance that conscience is now lay- 
ing upon you; and that not merely be 
cause we anticipate in future a hardie) 
resistance to its dictates, but we anticipate 
the progressive feebleness of a decaying 
and perhaps of an expiring conscience. 
Or, in other words, we know that He who 
suggests to it all its admonitions, and 
arms its yoice with all the energy that 
belongs to it, may at length be driven by 
your perverse and ungracious treatment 
of Him to abandon His office altogether, 
and to leave the chamber of that mind 
where sin reigns uncontrolled and fills 
the recesses. of the inner man with its 
dark and unhallowed imagery,—leave it 
with all its rebellious affections unre- 
buked by His presence and unblest by 
any of His future visitations. 

This is not an aerial speculation. 
What we have now asserted may be 
seen by us all, fixed and exemplified on 
many a living subject. ‘There are men 
to be met with at all times, crossing our 
daily path, and sitting down with us in 
the social party, and entering into talk 
with us in the room of public resort, and 
into negotiation with us at the market- 
place—who are just in that very state of 
abandonment which we have now been 


40 


describmg. You may not have been in 
the habit of looking upon them, as men 
of whom you could say, that the Spirit 
of God had given them over. But this 
is only because you have not adverted to 
the fact—that it is this Spirit who is the 
real, though secret and unnoticed author, 
of every movement of principle ; of every 
suggestion of conscience ; of every check 
of self-reproach ; of every arresting call, 
by which the mind is directed to serious- 
ness, and is led to bethink itself of God, 
and is visited by a sense of the present 
guilt and the coming judgment, and is 
m any way brought under the power of 
a religious consideration. We are sure, 
you must allow, that there is not a more 
familiar exhibition amongst your fellow- 
men, than of one who is built up in an 
ease and in a security, to which the mo- 
nitor within offers no disturbance what- 
ever—of one who does, and is in the 
deliberate habit of doing, what is clearly 
and undeniably wrong ; but whose con- 
science has ceased to ply him with her 
remonstrances, and to tell him that it is 
so—of one, who, in the pursuits of volup- 
tuousness, suffers not one thought of the 
law of heaven, to stop him in that un- 
hallowed career on which he has em- 
barked himself—of, one, who, in the 
prosecution of gain, can do things with- 
out one check of remorse, which other 
men could not do, without their inner 
man bringing the whole armour of prin- 
ciple and of compunction and a struggling 
sense of duty into war against it. You 
must, in your walk of experience, have 
met with such men—whose conscience 
is asleep, or whose conscience has lost 
its power of admonition ; or whose con- 
science, at least, has given up her wonted 
task, of presenting her admonitions to 
the notice of the infatuated profligate, or 
of the corrupt and devoted worlding. 
And if you just connect this fact, offered 
to you by your own experience, with the 
undoubted truth—that this said conscience 
is neither more nor less than the organ, 
through which the Spirit of God sends 
His impressive whispers into the soul ; 
and plies it with the awful lessons, of 
man being answerable to his God, and 
of God’s wrath being revealed from hea- 
ven against all unrighteousness of man 
—Then the right inference to make con- 


THE SPIRIT’S STRIVING WITH MAN. 


[SERM. 


is, that the Spirit of God is no longer at 
work with him. He no longer offers te 
move him out of the fatal tranquillity 
which has got hold of him. And that 
soul, which is enjoying itself for a few 
years—which feels so much at ease, be- 
cause leaning on a foundation of repose 
that never varies—which goes on to sin 
without one disquieting scruple ; and to 
keep by its distance from God, without 
one terrifying thought of His unescapable 
eye, and His no less unescapable judg- 
ment— Why such a soul, surrounded as 
it may be with all the securities of un- 
concern, and of worldly pleasure, and of 
prosperous circumstances, and of, health, 
which bids fair for a long vista and a 
brilliant perspective on this side of eter- 
nity—such a soul, with all its enviable 
tranquillities, and all its keen enjoyment 
of time and of its vanities, is neither more 
nor less than ripening for its doom, in 
the deceitful calm of a deep and undis- 
turbed infatuation. And, however much 
the easy man may be the object of com- 
placency to himself and of convivial de- 
light to his acquaintances who are like 
him—on him lies the awful sentence of 
being let alone; of being given up by 
the Spirit of God ; of being turned from 
as one of those hopeless subjects, on 
whom all the past suggestions of con 
science and of principle have been throwr. 
away: of being left to the deep spirit of 
slumber, in which he may persist to the 
hour of death, and from which he ma 
never, never be awakened, till the sound 
of the last trumpet shall summon him 
from the grave—and the awful infliction 
of his now heedless, and thoughtless, and 
remorseless guilt, shall frown upon him 
in fell characters of truth and of severity 
from the judgment-seat. 

But, it may be said, does not this treat- 
ment of him by the Spirit of God look 
hard and unrelenting ? Would it not be 
kind to keep by him, and to remonstrate 
with him, and to send another and another 
suggestion through the conscience of this 
poor child of infatuation? Yes, but ere 
we indulge in these reflections, let us 
think what the Spirit of God has already 
done for him. We appeal to his own 
remembrance, if any such be here, whe- 
ther the Spirit of God have not already 
done all this 2 We call him to look back 


cerning him who hears no such whispers, | on his youthful days. and bid him recol- 


4 


v.] 


lect, if there never was a time in the 
whole history of his life, when conscience 
awoke upon him, when, ere he entered 
that career of cuilt on which he is now 
so fully embarked, if the internal moni- 
tor, true to her office, did not struggle 
the point with him; and he, suffering 
himself to be overborne by temptations, 
would none of her reproof, and turned 
away from all her admonitions? We 
ask him to tell us upon his own honest 
remembrance of the past, if, even after 
he had been led astray among the dark 
paths of this world’s deceit and this world’s 
ptofligacy, conscience still did not keep 
for months and for years by her post, 
and ever and anon plied him with her 
visitations ?. We ask hin, if she did not 
fill her mouth with arguments, and make 
use of every plea to recal her thankless 
disciple, from the profanations and the 
depravities into which he was wander- 
ing? Was there never a time when she 
pressed him with her suggestions; and 
he, shutting the hasty door against them 
all, took shelter in the surrounding ex- 
ample, and quelled his every agitation 
amid the boisterous merriment of his still 
hardier acquaintances ? 

Yes, if he will only look back, he will 
find that it was long and very long, ere 
conscience gave way to his repeated 
insults, and was at length compelled 
to quit him under the power of his mani- 
fold and provoking contempt for her. 
And ere she could resign her task, did 
she borrow suggestions from every quar- 
ter, and try her every expedient, and 
waited her every moment, and bethink 
herself of a variety of affecting consider- 
ations. She would at one time fetch an 
aroument from heaven; and tell him of 
the God who sitteth on the throne, and 
of the law that proceedeth out of His 
mouth, and of the all-seeing eye that is in 
every place beholding the evil and the 
good. At another, she would fetch her 
argument from earth, and, to subdue him 
into tenderness would she set before him 
the picture of a venerable father ; and of 
the mansions of piety, where he spent 
his early days, and would have shrunk 
in horror from the thought of his present 
delinquencies ; and of the prayers which 
his unsuspecting parents are still putting 
forth for him; and of the thankless 
return he has made them for all their 

6 


THE SPIRITS STRIVING WITH MAN. 


Al 


anxieties ; and how, dismantled of all his 
youthful innocence, and with all purity 
fled from his practice and all tenderness 
from his heart, he was widening every 
day his distance from that God, at whose 
word he had been taught to tremble, and 
whose sabbaths he had been taught to 
remember and to keep them holy. But 
why need we talk of his conscience, 
when in fact it was the pure and the 
Holy Spirit of God, who prompted her 
every admonition, and gave its emphasis 
to every lifting of her voice. This Spirit 
kept by him; and gave him the fairest 
and most frequent trials; and, grieved 
though He was by the bitterest provoca- 
tions did not for long abandon him; and 
went along with him to those haunts of 
iniquity, where pure as He was, He had 
to bear with all the impurities and all the 
execrations which are acted in these 
scenes of wickedness, and even then did 
He attempt to reclaim him to serious- 
ness: But all, all was stifled ; and after 
a patience exercised to the uttermost— 
after the discouragement of many refusals 
—after being quenched and resisted in 
many thousand ways—then and not till 
then did the Holy Spirit of God, against 
whom he is now venting forth his mur- 
murs of discontent, abandon him to his 
own infatuation. 

And even still, if there be any indi- 
vidual of the description we allude to 
within the reach of our hearing, and 
whose conscience has been at all touched, 
or his feelings at all arrested, by the in- 
strumentality of our feeble voice—then 
there has been another agent between 
him and us, than the mere sound by 
which the words of truth are conveyed to 
his hearing. The Spirit of God has lent 
His presence to the sound. And after 
the long and dreary absence of those 
years which have been spent at a distance 
from all that was serious in principle, 
and all that was pure and righteous in 
conduct, has He now come back upon 
him; and made another reappearance ; 
and given him another sight of His 
rebuking countenance; and is making 
another trial to find a way into his bosom: 
and forgetful of every provocation, and 
of every wrong that He has gotten from 
his hands, is He telling him that here is 
another opportunity; and lifting His 
friendly countenance, that, if possible, He 


42 


may still-restrain him from the fate of a 
desperado in rebellious iniquity against 
God. He is pointing to him, on the one 
hand, the terrors of that sentence which 
is awaiting him, if he will turn him 
away from the reproof that He is now 
laying upon His conscience ; and, on the 
other, He is trying to lure him to his 
safety, by holding forth to the eye of his 
mind the arms of an inviting lawgiver, 
who, even in this late hour of his dark 
and deceitful day, still says, That if he 
will only return to Him and make his 
peace with Him through the blood of an 
everlasting covenant, and be willing to 
live no longer to himself but to the new 
law of Him who has taken upon Him the 
burden of his iniquities—that He is wil- 
ling to forgive all and to forget all. If 
any thing will touch the heart of him 
who has driven at a long career of hard 
and obstinate impenitency, this should. 
And if it do not, who does not see that 
God has wiped His hands of him? Who 
does not see, that He who sitteth on the 
throne, and has plied him through life 
with so many warnings of proclaimed 
danger and so many messages of insulted 
tenderness, has acquitted Himself of all 
harsh and unrighteous severity? Who 
does not see, that the blood lieth on the 
head of him who has thus abandoned 
himself; and that it is by his own re- 
peated sins against the imploring and 
beseeching and expostulating Spirit, that 
this Spirit tempted and exercised to the 
uttermost, has taken its final flight, and 
put on its inflexible purpose of never 
returning to this vessel of wrath fitted for 
destruction. 

Now the appeal we have made to the 
hoary and the habitual and the hack- 
neyed offender is applicable to you all. 
If there have come near the hearts of any 
one of you this day, a single impulse 
towards the repentance that is unto salva- 
tion, it is the Spirit of God who brought 
the impulse home to your conviction ; 
and you inflict upon Him a wound and 
a provocation, if you let it be smothered 
among the levities or the profanenesses 
or the cold and blasting secularities of 
this alienated world. You have made 
this one other attempt in the work of 
striving with you fruitless; and you are 
tempting Him to desist from striving 
ahogether. O what a fearful importance 


THE SPIRIT’S STRIVING WITH MAN. 





[SERM 


it gives to every suggestion of right or of 
wrong by which you are visited! En.- 
courage the suggestion and follow it; 
and you encourage the Spirit of God 
to persevere with you, in the exercise of 
all His offices. Stifle the suggestion, 
and resist it, and suffer it to be quenched 
and forgotten amid the tumults of a noisy, 
headlong, and worldly career; and you 
set up a contest from which God declares, 
that His Spirit will at length retire. His 
patience has a limit beyond which it 
will not pass. And by this one and that 
other act of resistance, to the call of Turn 
and repent and live—by this wretched 
postponement one day after another in 
which you have persisted so long—by 
this deceitful carrying forward of the 
purpose, to some distant period of your 
anticipated history—by this delusive mis- 
calculation upon the eleventh hour—you 
are every day bringing nearer to you 
that awful consummation, when it might 
be said of you, what our Saviour said 
with tears over the devoted city of Jeru- 
salem, “ Hadst thou known in thy day 
the things which belong to thy peace, 
but now they are forever hid from thine 
eyes.” 

May the Spirit of God press home this 
interesting argument resistlessly upon 
you ; and by the working of that power 
of His, by which He is mighty to the 
pulling down of strongholds, may all 
your feelings and all your purposes be 
overborne. May the call of immediate 
repentance force its way through the 
withstanding barriers of every heart, 
that is now trenched in the depths of 
alienation. In the striving of this day, 
may He make a conquest over you. 
And working in you faith with power— 
and making through this faith your souls 
a fit habitation for Himself—and stirring 


|up within you the immediate resolution 


of giving up all that you know to be sin- 
ful in your conduct—and plying you 
with suggestions, which, listened to and 
obeyed, may open an inviting access into ° 
your heart for all His communications— 
May He thus obtain within you a firm 
and inviolable lodoment—That brought 
under the dominion of His purifying and 
sanctifying and perfecting influences, it 
may be seen of you, that you are indeed 
born again by the word of God, brought 
home to your consciences with power by — 


V1 ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 4 


e 


the Spirit of God; and have embarked | carries forward to the glories of immoz: 
all your energies and all your desires | tality, every new creature in Jesus Christ 
upon that new track of obedience, which! our Lord. 


SERMON VI. 
On the Nature of the Sin unto Death. 


“There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.”—1 Joun v. 16. 


Ir we. assume that the sin unto death 
is the same with the sin against the Holy 
Ghost—then, from what has been said in 
a previous discourse, it will follow that 
we regard those people to be on a wrong 
track of inquiry, who, with a view to as- 
certain whether they have committed this 
sin, look back to their by-gone history ; 
and rummage the depositories of their 
past remembrance; and try to find, 


’- among all the deeds they have ever com- 


mitted, that one deed of particular enor- 
mity, to which the forgiveness of the gos- 
pel will not and cannot be extended. 
There is, in truth, no such deed within 
the reach of human performance. The 
blood of Christ can wash away the guilt 
of all the sins of all the individuals in the 
assemblage before us; and, in the hear- 
ing of every one of you, do we make this 
free and open announcement of the gos- 
pel remedy, in all the power and pre- 
ciousness which belong to it. It is a 
matter of rare occurrence, but it does oc- 
- cur, that the imagination of this sin fills 
the heart of some melancholy patients 
with the agitations of despair; and 
spreads a dark and mournful complexion 
over the secret history of him who is the 
victim of it; and keeps the comfort of the 
gospel far away from him; and fixes in 
his mind the obstinate delusion, that there 
is a something about him, which renders 
him an exception to those wide and uni- 
versal calls, which are made to circulate 
at large among all the other sons and 
daughters of the species. Now this is a 
misapprehension. The offer is still unto 
all, and upon all who believe ; and he is 
not excluded from the offer. And there 
is not a single iniquity of his past life that 
so excludes him. And if he will only 
come to Christ in His appointed way; 


and do honour to the power of His sacri- 
fice, by resting on it; and show respect 
to His authority, by putting forth all the 
energy that is in him to act up to its re- 
quirements; and evidence his humble 
submission to the doctrine of the Spirit, 
by praying for Him in faith; and give 
proof of the general honesty which runs 
through all his principles on the subject 
of the Christian religion, by his diligent 
use of every revealed expedient, in the 
way of reading and acting and devoutly 
observing the appointed ordinances— 
then do we say to him what we say to 
you all—that you have taken such a 
step, and entered upon such a career, and 
committed yourself to such an infallible 
guidance, as in spite of all the manifold 
deformities of your past life, and under 
allthat guilt of rebelliousness which now 
lies upon you, will translate you into ac- 
ceptance with the God whom you have 
so deeply offended; and carry you for- 
ward by the ascending march of a pro- 
gressive and ever-advancing sanctifica- 
tion, to all the glories and all the perfec- 
tions of a blissful eternity. 

But though this retrospective examina- 
tion of the past is not the way of ascer- 
taining whether you have committed the 
unpardonable sin, there is a way, not 
perhaps of ascertaining, but of gathering 
much both of probability and of most 
valuable and important information re- 
specting it. ‘The question we put to you 
is, not what you have done through the 
life that is past, but what do you feel at 
present ? How is the call we have now 
sounded in your ears, telling upon your 
purposes? Howis this wondrously free 
invitation of the gospel entertamed by 
you at this moment? ‘Tell us, if the 


| proclamation of an open path to return 


44 THE sIN 
to the God from whom you were aliena- 
ted, is at all disposing you to bestir your- 
selves and moving you towards Him? 
Let us know, if it be your intention now, 
to abandon every one of the things which 
you know to be the will of Christ that 
you should abandon ; or, in other words, 
to turn ye from all your iniquities. Let 
us know, if you wish to submit your 
hearts to the power and the vitality of 
His spiritual law. Let us know if you 
wish for acceptance on the simple footing 
of His righteousness; and if you wish 
for holiness through the operation of that 
Spirit, which is alone able to revolution- 
ize your inner man, and bring it into an 
entire and an altogether devoted conform- 
ity to the will of a heart-searching God. 
Tell us whether the earnest aspiration 
and the honest intention towards all this 
be in you; or tell if the urgency of these 
invitations be now falling without power 
and without fruit-upon your unstimula- 
ted consciences. Then know, that, if, im 
the struggle of your opposing purposes 
ani your conflicting inclinations, the 
world shall prevail—we will not say, if 
you have yet so grieved the Holy Spirit 
of God, as to determine Him to leave you 
for ever: But you have at least height- 
ened the provocation, and brought it 
nearer to the point of His final abandon- 
ment. We cannot say of any of you, 
that you have come this length already. 
But we can say of all: who retire from us 
this day, without an effective purpose of 
immediate repentance—that, by this sin- 
gle act of resistance, you have brought 
yourselves nearer to it. The sin against 
the Holy Ghost is not a point of myste- 
rious speculation. It is a point of prac- 
tical importance. It is a point of plain 
and impressive application to every ordi- 
nary conscience. And what a fearful 
importance does it confer on every call 
to turn unto God—what a mighty rein- 
forcement to every argument that can be 
addressed to you for turning immediately 
—that by every resistance to every single 
impulse that is made upon you, you are 
working up the sin against the Holy 
Ghost nearer and nearer to that point of 
aggravation, at which He takes His final 
departure away from you; that you are 
making farther approaches to a state of 
desperate impenitency ; that you are get- 
ting forward to such a pitch of hardened 


UNTO DEATH. 


[SERM. 


opposition, as coustitutes the sin unto 
death—a sin ‘or which no intercession 
will avail; no prayer of weeping rela- 
tive will be lifted with efficacy to heaven ; 
no earthly expedient will ever woo that 
Spirit back again, whom your manifold 
provocations and your oft repeated con- 
tempt have determined to let you for ever 
alone. 

The sin against the Holy Ghost is not 
some obscure and useless doctrine, which ° 
occupies its hidden corner in the field of 
revelation; and forms a legitimate topic 
of speculation only to those, who have 
attained some rare and monstrous distinc- 
tion by a daring feat of impiety. It car- 
ries a lesson along with it which applies 
to you all at this very moment. If there 
be some old among you, upon the obdu- 
racy of whose hackneyed consciences, 
the call we have now lifted in your hear- 
ing makes no practical impression— 
then, look not for the sin against the 
Holy Ghost in any guilty act by which 
some passage of your former history is 
deformed. It consists in that repeated 
act, by which you have turned the every 
call of the gospel away from you; and 
the evidence of it does not lie in any 
thing that memory can furnish you wit 
out of the materials of the history that is 
past. The evidence of it lies in the pre- 
sent condition of your soul, as to its moral 
and religious sensibility ; and if that sen- 
sibility is so far deranged, as to beget in 
you at this moment no impulse towards 
your turning unto God, in that way ot 
appointed mediatorship that is made 
known to us in the New Testament— 
this is a fell and an alarming symptom 
as to you, and well have you reason to 
suspect and to anticipate and to tremble. 
Again, if there be some old among you, 


| who, after a sleep so long and so pro- 


found that it bore a resemblance to the 
irrecoverable sleep of death, are now vis- 
ited with a movement and a desire and 
a concern after these things; and feel a 
readiness in you to be all that Christ 
would have you to be; and are looking 
earnestly towards the way of His salva- 
tion ; and long to be established upon it 
—then we have no power of divination 
into the way or the mind of the un- 
searchable Spirit. All that we can do is 
to put a fair interpretation upon the facts 
that are before us. And the fact of an 


vi] 


arrested conscience even on the eleventh 
hour of an indolent and a rebellious day, 
speaks for itself, and tells you that He 
has not yet left you. And we feel not 
that we are exceeding our warrant by a 
single inch, when we try to cheer you on 
by the language of encouragement ; and 
call upon you not to quench the Spirit— 
not to let this movement in your heart 
pass unproductive away from you—not to 
make of it but one transitory glimpse, 
previous to an everlasting departure.— 
But do follow out the impulse that you 
have gotten ; and drink in all the com- 
fort that the free grace of the gospel is 
fitted to inspire; and aspire after all the 
strictness of walk and conversation, 
which becomes the profession of it; and 
let not the imploring cry for the clean 
heart and the right spirit cease to ascend 
to the throne of God through the channel 
of His Son, till the answer come down 
upon you in all its fulness, and your re- 
pentance be perfected. 

But let the youngest also among you, 
(and by addressing ourselves both to old 
and. young we comprehend all who now 
hear us), learn what a fearful thing it is 
to tamper with conscience—to stifle any 
of its movements—to suppress the dic- 
tates of your inward monitor on any 
temptation whatever—or to suffer the 
small still voice within you to be deafen- 
ed and overborne, by the maddening out- 
cry of those lawless, those deriding, those 

rofligate scorners with whom you may 
rs unhappily associated. By so doing 
you commit an offence against the light 
of conscience. You commit an offence 
against that present agent, who makes 
the light to shine upon it. And one such 
offence facilitates the way to another.— 
And you enter on a career of defiance to 
principle. And the matter aggravates. 
And the sin accumulates upon you till it 
arrives at that fatal point in the history of 
every man who walks the whole of the 
broad way which leadeth to destruction—. 
even to that point where the Holy Ghost 
abandons him for ever ; and that just be- 
cause the sin against the Holy Ghost, is 
now wrought up to that degree of enor- 
mity, which provokes Him to take His 
final and irrecoverable leave of you:— 
Every slighted call brings you nearer to 
this point. Every neglected warning 
brings you nearer to it. Every sermon 


THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 


45 


however much it may be talked of, and 
liked, and acquiesced in by the under- 
standing, if it tell not on the practical 
powers, brings you nearer to it. The 
history of this very day may bring you 
nearer it. And therefore it -is, that we 
never can consent to repentance on any 
other terms than repentance now. "We 
never can listen without alarm to all the 
misapplied phraseology about the eleventh 
hour. We never can speak to you in 
any other language, than “to-day while 
it is called to-day.” We never can lay 
before you the gift of an offered Saviour, 
but we must speak of “now as your ac- 
cepted time, and now as the day of your 
salvation.”” And we have but one object, 
and all our explanation has been thrown 
away on him who retires from us this 
evening ; and who, if hitherto a stranger 
to the power and significancy of these 
things, does not, from this time forward, 
begin and carry on that good work of 


‘}turning unto the Lord, which shall ter- 


minate in the secure and everlasting en- 
joyment of His presence in paradise. 
Now, to turn all this to the practical 
account of regulating our intercessions in 
behalf of others—suppose, in the first in- 
stance, that I possessed in a perfect de- 
gree, a gift that we know to have been 
miraculously conferred in the first age of 
Christianity—the discerning of spirits.— 
Suppose me endowed with the faculty of 
looking to another man; and taking as 
accurate a note of the movements of his 
heart, as if I could perceive through a 
window the secrecy of all its operations. 
Give me the power, in particular, of esti- 
mating all the degrees of his actual re- 
sistance to the voice of conscience ; and 
furnish me at the same time with the 
knowledge at what point of resistance it 
is, that the Holy Spirit gives up the man 
with whom he has been striving to the 
infatuation of his own perverse and de- 
termined wilfulness—and then would I 
know at what instant of time it was that 
he had committed the sin unto death.-— 





"Phen LE would know how long he re- 


mained the hopeful subject of my inter- 
cessions; and then would I know the 
time of hisarrival at that point in the 
history of impenitence, when the imspir- 
ed Apostle of our text withdraws his pos- 
itive sanction from my prayers. It is to 
be observed, that he does not speak upon 


46 


this subject with the tone and in the terms 


of decision. _He does not peremptorily 
forbid prayer. He speaks in the man- 
ner of a man who had received no posi- 
tive commission upon the subject. He 
leaves it on the footing of a point of 
doubtfulness, whether a man should pray 
or not for an acquaintance in these cir- 
cumstances. He announces himself to 
his readers, very much in the same way 
in which Paul announced himself, when 
he ventured to speak in his own person, 
and not with the authority of an inspired 
messenger. “I speak as a man.” J 
give you my own judgment, says Paul, 
in a matter, in which God has not 
thought fit to favour me with any revela- 
tion. In the verse before us, John does 
not even venture to give us his own 
judgment. He goes no further than to 
express his opinion of the inefficacy, and 
therefore his doubtfulness as to the pro- 
priety of intercession, when it was made 
in behalf of one who had sinned the sin 
unto death. But he at least supposes that 
some of those whom he addressed, had 
the means of knowing when a professing 
Christian committed this sin. Suppose 
them then to have this knowledge.— 
Suppose, that, in virtue of the miraculous 
gift of discerning spirits, they were made 
sure of the irrecoverable state of some 
member of their society. Then they 
could not pray for his recovery in faith. 
They could not, along with such a pray- 
er, present that offering to God which is 
essential to its acceptance. ‘They could 
not, im this Instance comply with the in- 
junction of the Saviour, who tells His 
disciples, that whatever they ask in pray- 
er, let them believe that they are to re- 
ceive it, and they shall receive it. They 
could not believe that they were to obtain 
by the power of their supplications, the 
recovery of the soul of him, whom they 
knew that the Holy Spirit had irrecover- 
ably abandoned. ‘They could not there- 
fore do, what, in the verses immediately 
preceding the text, they were told would 
give an unfailing success to all their pe- 
titions—they could not ask for this thing, 
knowing at the same time that it was 
agreeable to the will of God ; and there- 
fore knowing that they should have the 
petitions that they desired of Him. And 
in these circumstances does John, by ex- 
pressing his doubtfulness whether such a 


THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 


[SERM 


prayer was right, withdraw at least the 
sanction of a positive authority, from any ~ 
intercessions delivered for an object so 
hopeless and sq unattainable. 

This, then, is the practical result that 
would come out of the circumstances of 
the first Christians. Those of whom 
they did not know, that they had com- 
mitted the sin unto deéath, they would 
make the subjects of their intercession 
before God; and as to those of whom 
they did know that they had been guilty 
of this sin, they would feel, from the 
want of faith in the possibility of the ob- 
ject, and from the discouragement they 
received at the mouth of an apostle, that 
they could not pray for them with any 
eficacy. Now just conceive them to 
have no certain way of knowing at all, 
whether any had committed this sin or 
not—what effect should this have on the 
practice of intercession? Why, it would 
bring the whole human race within the 
circle of their prayers. It would enable 
them to fulfil the injunction of “ pray for 
all men,” without laying any such modi- 
fication on this precept as is pointed out 
by the apostle in the text. ‘Those whom 
they thought hopefully and well of, they 
could of course pray for with a higher 
degree of confidence before God, than 
those of whom they were ignorant or 
doubtful. But still there was no positive 
knowledge of their case being irrecover- 
able, that ought at all to restrain them 
from such petitions, as, “ Lord, if it be 
thy will, do thou work faith with power 
inthe heart of this particular acquaint- 
ance’—“ Lord, if it be possible, that the 
obstinate enmity to the truth which fes- 
ters in the heart of another, can be made 
to yield to the influences of thy Divine 
Spirit, do thou cause it to pass away from 
him”—“ Lord, do thou recal my unhappy 
relative from those depths of alienation 
in which he is sunk, and raise him from 
his death in trespasses and sins to the 
new obedience of a spiritual resurrec- 
tion.” Yes, and though his depravities 
should accumulate upon him by every 
hour of his earthly existence; though 
the hardness of an impenitent heart should 
be ever gathering into a temper of still 
more settled obstinacy than before ; though 
habit should be compassing him round, 
within the enclosure of a tighter and more 
inextricable bondage ; nay, though in the 


RES 


secret counsels of heaven his die should 
be cast, and months or seasons may have 
rolled, since the Spirit made His last at- 
tempt upon him, and then died away into 
a final and irremediable separation—yet 
so long as this counsel is a secret to you 
—so long as in your mind this question 
has a slight uncertainty to rest upon it— 
then you are not released from the duty 
that lies upon you; and acting, as it is 
your humble and becoming part to do, 
on the revealed things which belong to 
you and to your children—you are at 
your post when you pray for the man of 
whose fate you are in the dark, though 
his fate may have long been fixed and 
determined on. 

Now this exhibits to us the kind of 
intercourse which goes on very exten- 
sively between earth and heaven—the 
intercourse, if we may use the expres- 
sion, of praying at a venture. It is a 
kind of intercourse warranted by scrip- 
tural example. Did not our Saviour 
pray, that, if possible, the cup might pass 
from Him ?—and He had to drink it 
to the very dregs. Did not Peter tell 
Simon Magus to pray God, if perhaps 
the thought of his heart might be for- 
given him? And, in the Old Testament, 
have we not examples of this uncertainty, 
as to the result both of praying and of 
doing? Does not God call on the people 
to prove Him—to put Him to the trial 
by their prayers? And does not the ex- 
pression repeatedly occur, “ Let us return 
unto the Lord’”—at one time in the way 
of supplication, at another in the way of 
obedience ?—And it is stated as the effect 
of it, that it may be the Lord will be 
gracious. 

What then should be the practice of 
the present day? We have no doubt 
that there are many who have put the 
final seal upon their own condemnation. 
But the question is, are there any upon 
whom that seal is legible to us? Is there 
a single individual of our acquaintance, 
"upon whose forehead we can read the 
ynscription, that he is undone? Is there 
a mark set upon him, by which we can 
learn, that he has rendered himself a 
fugitive and a vagabond from the mercy 
af God? Is there any such index, that 
at all offers itself to the eye of our senses; 
and if there be none, then, is there any 
one of us, who can so weigh the secrets 


THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 


47 


of the heart, and so penetrate into the 
counsels of God, as to determine of one 
single human being who walks abroad 
on the scene of life and population around 
us, that he is an outcast from prayer ? In 
those days of miracle, when the discern- 
ing of spirits was given to apostles and 
to primitive teachers, there may have 
been individuals, in behalf of whom the 
duty of prayer ought to be suspended— 
who had not only thrown themselves 
irrecoverably out from the mercies of 
God, but who, certainly known to be so, 
had arrested that voice of supplication, 
which wont to ascend for them from their 
fellow-men. In those days of wide and 
visible distinction between the church 
and the world, when the very profession 
of Christianity proved a certain degree 
of sincerity and earnestness—when, by 
the very act of being admitted into the 
society of disciples, it was made evident, 
that there was a certain liking for their 
doctrine; and a certain sympathy im their 
feelings, and in their faith ; and a certain 
participation in the hopes of the gospel ; 
and a certain tasting of the word of life ; 
and 2 certain habit of living by the powers 
of a coming world—In those days, when 
men by their very profession proved that 
they were so far partakers of the Holy 
Ghost—that to throw him off, after all 
their experience of the power and pre- 
ciousness of His teaching—that to throw 
Him off, after all the fellowship they had 
with Him, and all the favours of light, 
and direction and joy they had gotten 
from His hand—argued a degree of re- 
sistance more hardened and more irre- 
coverable, than even to hold out against 
His first and His earliest instigations— 
In such days, and with such a visible 
landmark before them, as the withdraw- 
ment of an apostate from their commu- 
nion, we know not but that even ordi- 
nary and unendowed Christians may 
have been able to judge of some of them, 
that they had so fallen away, and so cru- 
cified to themselves the Son of God afresh, 
and so put Him to an open shame—that 
they had committed the sin unto death, 
and were beyond the reach of human 
prayer, because it was impossible to re- 
new again unto repentance.* But tell 
us, if you have attained this certainty of 





See Heb. vi. 4—46. 


48 


any one man you can point your finger 
to? Can you say of any one desperado 
in wickedness, that there goes an outcast 
from mercy, and that it is vain to pray 
for him? Or, rather, is it not true of us 
all, that such is our ignorance of the 
human heart; and so deep is that veil 
with which the God of wisdom has chosen 
to shroud the doctrine of individual des- 
tiny—that there is not a man within the 
range of the acquaintance of any of us, 
of whom it is not our becoming duty to 
pray in his behalf, lest peradventure God 
may give him repentance to the acknow- 
ledging of the truth 2 

Now mark how the very principle 
which runs through the subject of pray- 
ing for others at a venture, applies in the 
whole extent of it to the subject of preach- 
ing to others at a venture. He who is 
put in charge of the gospel, knows not 
to whom it shall be the savour of life 
unto life, and to whom it shall be the 
savour of death unto death. He is at 
his post, and-in the exercise of his duty, 
when he proclaims it in the hearing of 
all, as that free and unconditional offer 
of mercy which is at the taking of all. 

He knows not where the offer is to 
light; nor from whose individual bosom 
it is to chase away his heavy alienation 
from the God whom he has offended ; 
nor what is the heart that shall be soft- 
ened by it out of all the obstinacy of its 
former impenitence ; nor in what quarter 
of the crowd that is before him, that man 
is to be found, whose conscience shall 
surrender itself to the power and urgency 
of the preacher’s voice ; nor into whose 
conviction the winged messenger shall 
find its entrance, because the power and 
demonstration of the Spirit have lent to it 
all its efficacy. Why, he is like a man 
drawing a bow at a venture; and he 
‘knows not whither the arrow is to speed 
its uncertain way. But of one thing he 
is certaim—that if the argument, by 
which he is trying now to storm the 
fortress of human: corruption, shall fall 
fruitless on the soul of any individual 
amongst you, that soul is strengthening 
the bulwarks of its future resistance 
against him; and the weapons of his 
spiritual warfare are becoming every day 
more languid and more ineffectual for 
their purpose; and the Holy Ghost, 
grieved by this fresh act of contempt and 


THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 


-[SERM. 


disobedience, is nearer than ever to the 
step of a final abandonment. 
it is that a doctrine, which, if it only 
ministered exercise to the understanding, 
we never should have touched upon—a 
doctrine, which, if it only serve to regale 
the curiosity of the speculative, is to him 
of no more use than any one of the lofty 
abstractions of philosophy—a doctrine 
which may be talked about, and contro- 


verted, and commented on in a thousand - 


different ways, while no salutary alarm 
is felt, and no energetic purpose is formed, 
upon the undoubted truth, that every day 
of procastination is nearing you to that 
point of time at which the Spirit ¢hall 
cease to strive with you—Thus it is that 
the doctrine of the sin against the Holy 
Ghost may be turned to the attainment 
of a practical end. It should so tell, in 
fact, on the hearts and the consciences of 
all men as to help on the business of 
their immediate repentance ; and it leaves 
every one without the shelter of a single 
pretext, for delaying to turn to God in 
His appointed way, and, fleeing from all 
sin, to flee for refuge to the hope set 
before him in the gospel. 

‘These explanations may serve perhaps 
to do away a difficulty, which, to the eye 
of a superficial observer, hangs over a 
remarkable passage in the history of our 
Saviour. On His approach to the city 
of Jerusalem, it is said of Him, that when 
He came near and beheld the city, He 
wept over it—saying, “If thou hadst 
known even thou at least in this thy day 
the things which belong unto thy peace ; 
but now they are hid from thine eyes.” 
It looks a mystery, that our Saviour 
should weep for that, which He had 
power to ward off fromm the object of his 
tenderness—that He who created these 
worlds, and who is now exalted a Prince 
and a Saviour, should abandon Himself 
to the helplessness of despair, when He 
contemplated the approaching fate of that 
city, which, after all the wrongs He had 
sustained from it, and all the perverse- 
ness and provocations He had gotten 
from its hands, He still longed after and 
sighed over in all the bitterness of grief, 
at the prospect of its coming visitation. 
Why, it may be thought, could not He 
have fulfilled the every desire of His 
sympathizing heart, by interposing the 
might and sovereignty which belonged 


And thus: 


Tees 


to Him? Could not He have arrested 
the progress of the victorious armies ? 
Could not He have been for a wall of 
defence around His beloved city; and 
whence that dark and mysterious neces- 
sity, to which even the power of Him, to 
whom all power was committed both 
in heaven and earth, was constrained to 
give way—insomuch that the Being, in 
whom was vested an omnipotence over 
the whole domain of Nature and of Prov- 
idence, felt that He had nothing for it 
but to sit Him down and weep over the 
doom that He saw to be irrevocable? 
It is true that the inhabitants of this 
devoted city were the children of dark- 
ness. It 1s true that they still put the 
ealls and the offers of the New Testament 
away from them. It is true that their 
yet unpenetrated hearts were shielded 
round by an obstinacy which had with- 
stood every previous application. But 
could not He who commanded the light 
to shine out of darkness, shine in their 
hearts with such a power and a splen- 
dour of conviction, as would have been 
utterly irresistible? Could not He who 
is able to subdue all things unto Himself, 
_have subdued His countrymen out of 
that obstinacy, which had hitherto stood 
immoveable to all the influence that was 
brought to bear upon it? Could not 
that influence have been augmented ? 
Could it not have been wrought up to 
such a degree of efficacy, as would have 
overmatched the whole force and tenacity 
of their opposing prejudices—and had 
this been done, the people would have 
been converted ; and the threatened ven- 
geance been withdrawn; and the Saviour 
_ would have seen in His countrymen of 
the travail of His soul, and been satisfied; 
and the mysterious phenomenon of the 
greatest and the powerfulest of all beings 
weeping over a calamity, to avert which 
He had both the power and the inclina- 
tion, would not have been presented : 
and how then does all this accord with 
what we know, or what we can guess, of 
the character of God’s administration ? 
Now this brings us to the limit be- 
tween those secret things which belong 
to God, and those things which are 
revealed and which belong to us and to 
our children. It were well for us that 
we gave up all our guesses, and made no 
attempt to be wise above that which: is 
7 


THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 





49 


written. And it were well for us that we 
remained satisfied with what God is 
pleased that we should know, or with be- 
ing wise up to that which is written. If 
the question related merely to the power 
of God, we are apt to think that there is 
no limit whatever to what He simply can 
do. We are apt to think, for example, 
that God could, if He had chosen, have 
lifted, by a simple act of remission, all the 
penal consequences of sin away from us; 
and have treated’ us as creatures, who 
stood absolved from the guilt of all our 
transgressions ; and have introduced us 
in this state into heaven ; and made each 
of us live in a state of enjoyment there 
throughout all eternity. 

But God has other attributes than those 
of mere power. And in virtue of them, 
He has chosen to conduct the adminis- 
tration of His government on certain 
great and unchangeable principles. And 
He has told us, and nothing remains for 
us but to take the information just as it is 
given, He has told us, that without shed- 
ding of blood there is no remission of 
sins, and no forgiveness without faith in 
that propitiation which is through the 
death of Jesus. And thus had the Son 
of God to bear the burden of all the ven- 
geance that we should have borne; and 
to take upon His shoulders the whole 
weight of the world’s atonement ; and to 
pour out His soul for us in tears and 
agonies and cries. And had there been 
no other attributes in the character of the 
Godhead, but the simple energy of His 
omnipotence and the longings of His 
compassion, all these pains and sorrows 
of suffering innocence might have been 
spared ; and, without so heavy a sacri- 
fice the barrier which defended the gate 
of Paradise might have been opened toa 
guilty world. But the truth and justice 
of God demanded an expiation ; and we * 
show the docility which belongs to us, 
when we give our unreserved acquies- 
cence tothe recorded fact ; and like little 
children in humility, as we are in under- 
standing, it is our part to take the state- 
ment as the statement is offered tous. In 
the same manner, when His Jewish ene- 
mies were proceeding to put our Saviour 
to the trial; and were mustermg up thei 
witnesses against Him; and were con: 
certing all those measures which led te 
His execution—He could have: inter 


50 THE SIN 


posed, and defeated all their policy, and 
overthrown all the might of that fearful 


- combination that was leagued to destroy 


Him: And had there been nothing but 
power in the case, and a simple desire to 
ward off from the Son of God all the dis- 
grace and humiliation and misery He 
was about to endure—how readily would 
twelve legions of angels have palsied the 
every arm, and sent consternation into 
the every heart of His persecutors! But 
here lay the necessity, and a necessity 
too, which, according to our Saviour’s 
own account of the matter, constituted an 
invincible barrier in the way of His de- 
liverance—This cannot be, says He, 
“for how then should the Scriptures be 
fulfilled?” The truth of God behoved 
to be accomplished. The prophecies of 
God must obtain their vindication. And 
dire as the spectacle was, to see perfect 
innocence so cruelly borne down, it was 
all forced to give way before a great and 
unchangeable principle in the Divine 
administration, Now apply this to the 
matter before us. ‘Take into account only 
the power of the Saviour to. deliver the 
city of Jerusalem, and the strength of His 
kind and affectionate desires towards it ; 
and you might think that there lay before 
Him a plain and practicable way for the 
fulfilment of the object. But there was 
another principle of the Divine adminis- 
tration which overruled the whole of this 
matter ; and, without attempting to dive 
into the reasons of the counsel of God, 
or to inquire why He has adopted such 
a principle—enough for us the bare an- 
nouncement of the fact that it is so. He 
has found out, and He has published a 
way of salvation ; and a message of peace 
is made to circulate round the world; 
and all who will are made welcome to 
partake of it; and the Spirit, urging 
every one to whom the word of salvation 
is sent to turn unto Christ from their ini- 
quities, plies them with as much argu- 
ment, and holds out to them as much 
light, and affects the conscience of one 
and all of us with as much power—as 
ought to constrain us to the measure of 
accepting the Saviour, and relinquishing 
for Him the idol of every besetting sin 
and of every seducing vanity. But if 
we wil] not be constrained, it is the mode 
of His procedure with every human soul, 
gradually to cease from His work of 


UNTO DEATH. 








[SERM. 


contesting with them. And He will not 
always strive. And to him who hath 
the property of yielding to His first in- 
fluences, more will be given. And to 
him who hath not, there will even be 
taken away from him such influences as 
he may have already had. And thus it 
is that the way of the Spirit with the con- 
science of man, harmonizes with all that 
we feel and all that we experience of the 
workings of this conscience. If often 
stifled and repressed, it will at lenoth 
cease to meddle with us. And enough 
for every practical purpose that we know 
this to be the fact. Enough that it is 
made known to us as a principle of 
God’s administration, though we know 
not the reason why it should be so. 
Enough to alarm us into an immediate 
compliance with the voice of our inward 
monitor, that, should we resist it any 
longer, the time may come, when even 
Omnipotence itself will not interpose to 
save us. Enough to compel our instan- 
taneous respect for all its suggestions, 
that, should we keep unmoved and un- 
awed by them, even the God of love, 
who wills the happiness of all His chil- 
dren, may find that the wisdom and the 
purity and the justice of His government 
require of Him our final and everlasting 
abandonment. And O how we should 
tremble to presume on the goodness of 
God—when we see the impressive atti- 
tude of Him, who, though the kindest 
and gentlest and best of beings, looked 
to the great mass of His countrymen, and 
foresaw the wretchedness that was in re- 
serve for them ; and, instead of offering 
to put forth the might of His resistless 
energy for their deliverance, did nothing 
but give way to the tenderness of His 
nature, and weep for a distress which 


-He would not remedy. 


They had got beyond that irrecovera- 
ble point we have so much insisted on. 
They had tried the Spirit of God to the 
uttermost, and He had ceased to strive 
with them. Atthat time of their day, 
when, had they minded the things which 
belong to their peace, they would have 
done it with effect—they put away from 
them His every admonition, and His 
every argument; and now there lay 
upon them the stern and unrelenting 
doom, that they were for ever hid from 
their eyes. Let us once more make the 


vr] 


application. The goodness of God lies 
in the freeness of that offer wherewith 
He urges you now. And He backs this 


offer oy the call of repentance now. And | 
S 


He tells you, that, to carry forward and 
to perfect this repentance, He is willing 
to minister help to all your infirmities 
now. And on this your day, He calls 
you to mind these things and to proceed 
upon these things now. But should this 
goodness not lead you to repentance— 
then it is not a goodness that you have 
any warrant to calculate upon, at any 
future stage of your history. And the 
time may come when all these things 
shall be hid from your eyes. The good- 
ness of God is perfect, as all His other 
attributes are; but then it js a goodness 
exercised in that one way of perfect wis- 
dom which He has thought fit to reveal 
to us. It is a goodness which harmo- 
nizes, in all its displays, with such max- 
ims and such principles in the way of 
God's administration, as God has thought 
fit to make known to us. It is a good- 
ness that will not survive all the resist- 
ance and all the provocation that we 


THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 


51 


may choose to inflict upon it. It is a 
goodness, in virtue of which, every one 
of us now may turn to the God whom 
we have offended ; and be assured of His 
abundant forgiveness; and be admitted 
into all the privileges of his reconciled 
children; and, rejoicing in the blood 
that cleanseth from all sin, stand with all 
the securities of conscious acceptance be- 
fore Him; and be established in that 
way of new obedience, for which He is 
both able and willing most abundantly 
to strengthen us. All this now, all this 
to day while it is called to day, should 
you harden not your hearts. All this on 
that critical and interesting now, which 
is called the accepted time and the day 
of salvation. But O forget not, that the 
same Saviour, who sounded just such 
calls in the ears of his countrymen, and 
would have gathered them together even 
as a hen gathereth her chickens under 
her wings, ere a few years more had 
rolled over the city of Jerusalem, wept 
when he beheld it, and thought of the 
stern and unalterable necessity of its ap- 
proaching desolation. | 


SERMON VIL. 


‘ The Christianity of the Sabbath. 


“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and cail 
the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and shalt honour him, not doing thine 
own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou de- 
light thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and 
feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”— 


Isa1au lviii. 13, 14. 


THERE are some who are disposed to | but for the purpose of reducing the aus- 
assign to the Sabbath the same rank with | terities which had of old been thrown 


the positive and ceremonial observances 
of Judaism; and who think that the 
authority of its obligations has ceased, 
with the rigours and the burdens of that 
grosser economy which has now gone 
by; and who make the spirituality of our 
own more enlightened dispensation the 
argument on which they would found the 
relaxation, if not the utter neglect, of this 
ordinance; and, in all this, they feel 
themselves to be very much confirmed 
by the silence of the New Testament, 
which never recognises the institution 


around it. 
assimilate the keeping of this day to the 
performing of any of those rites that have 
-no place in Christianity ; and bear to it 
no more regard than they would to any 
of those Hebrew festivals, which, since 
the destruction of the temple, and the 
coming in of another system of worship, 
has fallen into total and irrecoverable 
desuetude. 


And, therefore, would they 


For the permanency of the Sabbath, 


however, we might argue its place in 
the decalogue, where it stands enshrined 


among the moralities-of a rectitude that 
is. iminutable, and everlasting ; and we 
might argue the traditional homage and 
observancy in which it has been held 
since the days of the Apostles; and we 
might argue the undoubted and experi- 
mental fact, that where this day is best 
kept, there all the other graces of Chris- 
tianity are in most healthful exercise and 
preservation. But we rather waive, for 
the present, all these considerations ; and 
would rest the perpetuity of the Sabbath 
law on this affirmation, that, while a day 
of unmeaning drudgery to the formalist, 
it is, to every real Christian, a day of 
holy and heavenly delight,—that he loves 
the law, and so has it graven on the tablet 
of his heart, with a power of sovereignty 
upon his actions, which it never had 
when it was only engraven on a tablet 
of stone, or on the tablet of an outward 
revelation,—that, wherever there is a true 
principle of religion, the consecration of 
the Sabbath is felt, not as a bondage, but 
is felt to be the very beatitude of the soul, 
—and that, therefore, the keeping of it, 
instead of being to be viewed as a slavish 
exaction on the time and services of the 
outer man, is the direct and genuine fruit 
of a spiritual impulse on the best affec- 
tions of the inner man. 

Christianity does not dispense with 
service on the part of its disciples. It 
only antmates this service with another 
principle, substituting what itself calls the 
newness of the spirit for the oldness of 
the letter. Now, the question is, Can 
such a substitution be made to pass upon 
the services of the Sabbath ?—for, if not, 
the genius of Christianity would appear 
to demand, that we should be rid of the 
Sabbath altogether, which ought not to 
retained, unless it can be brought into 
accordancy with the style and character 
ef the new religion. Bat if, on the other 
hand, the Sabbath is really capable. of 
being translated from the oldness of the 
letter.to the newness of the spirit—there 
may be no need, under the economy of 
the Gospel, for the Sabbath being dis- 
carded—it were quite enough, that it 
should be accommodated to our more 
enlightened dispensation. There is a 
Judaical style of Sabbath observancy, and 
this ought to give place to the genius of 
our better economy. But there may, 


also, be a Christian style of Sabbath 


CHRISTIANITY. OF THE SABBATH. 


services. 
‘done away, as out of keepmg with Chris- 
‘tianity, if only signalised from all other 


profitable unto all things. 
‘most unseemly appendage to the disciple- 


of the God of love. 
‘rest, upon this condition, the claims of 
|Sabbath to the homage and observation 
of Christians; and, should it not be pos- 





[SERM. 


observancy ; in which case, we. have not 
to abolish this institution, but only to. 


‘transfuse into its services the same spirit 


which the Gospel transfuces into all other ” 
Let the Sabbath be altogether 


days by the bodily exercise which pro- 


‘fiteth little ; and if it admit not of being 


so signalized by that. godliness which is 
It were a 


ship of the gospel, could it not be deli- 
vered from the aspect of a morose and 
unbending Pharisee; and be. softened 
and transformed. into the aspect of a free, 
and. joyful, and affectionate worshipper 
We are willing to 


sible to. make the condition good, we are 
willing that the Sabbath should pass 
away with the feasts and the holidays of 
a ritual that is now superannuated. 
Certain it is, that the Sabbath day may 
be made to wear an aspect of great gloom 


and great ungainliness, with each hour 


having its own irksome punctuality at- 
tached to it; and when the weary formal- 
ist, labourmg to acquit himself in full 
tale and measure of all his manifold 
observations, is either sorely fatigued in 
the work of filling up the unvaried rou- 
tine, or is sorely oppressed in conscience, 
should there be the slightest encroach- 
ment either on its. regularity, or en its 
entireness. Wemay follow him through 
his Sabbath history, and mark how, in the 
spirit of bondage, this drivelling slave 
plies at an unceasing task, to which, all the 
while, there is a secret dissatisfaction in 
his own. bosom, and with which he lays 
an intolerable penance on his. whole 
family. He is clothed inthe habiliments 
of seriousness, and holds out the aspect 
of it; but mever was aspect more. unpro- 
mising or more unlovely. And, in this 
very character of severity, it is possible ~ 
for him to move through all the stages 
of Sabbath observancy—first, to eke out 
his morning hour of solitary devotion ; 
and then to assemble his household to 
the psalms, and the readings, and the 
prayers, which are all set forth in. due 
and regular celebration; and then, with 
stern. parental authority, to muster in full 


va. ] 


CHRISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. 


attendance for church, all the children. 
and domestics who belong to him; and’ 


then, in his compressed and crowded 
pew, to hold out, in complete array, the 
demureness of spirit that sits upoh his 
own countenance, and the demureness 
of constraint that sits on the general face 
of his family ; and then to follow up the 


public services of the day by an evening, 


the reigning expression of which shall 
be, that of strict, unbending austerity— 
when the exercises of patience, and the 
exercises of memory, and a confinement 
that must not be broken from, even for 
the temptmg air and beauty of a garden, 
and the manifold other interdicts that are 
laid on the vivacity of childhood, may 
truly turn every Sabbath as it comes 
round into a periodical season of suffer- 
ance and dejection: And thus, instead of 
being a preparation of love and joy for a 
heaven of its own likeness, may all these 
proprieties be discharged, for no other 
purpose, than that of pacifying the jea- 
lousies of a God of vengeance, and work- 
ing out a burdensome acquittal from the 
exactions of this hard and unrelenting 
task-master. 

Now, it must be quite evident, that 
such a Sabbath is characterized through- 
out by the oldness of the letter. The 
fear, and the disquietude, and even that 
sense of the meritoriousness of works, 
which all issue from the spirit of legality, 
may easily be witnessed in its various 
services. And nothing can be more pal- 
pable than the want of heart and of good 
will in its whole style of observation. It 
is an affair, not of love, but of labour— 
not the homage of spontaneous affection, 
but a mere thing of handiwork, and of 
bodily exercise. The very soreness and 
scrupulosity of the man’s conscience, on 
the accidental misgiving of any of his 
arrangements, are at utter antipodes with 
the liberty of one of the children of God. 
There is no one character of a free celes- 
tial spirit that exists beneath this grim 
form and parade of godliness. It is like 
the attempt to make a purchase of heaven 
by the pains and the privations of a rig- 
orous devoteeship ; and little are many 
of our sturdy professors aware, how 
much the operose drudgery of their Sab- 
bath is at variance with their own ortho- 
doxy,—how often it is prosecuted with 


the view to establish a righteousness of 


33 


their own,—and how there may mingle 
with these laberious sanctities, both of 
public worship and of private and family 
exercise, the very spirit in which either 
Papist or Pharisee thinks that he will 
carry heaven on the strength of his man- 
ifold observations. 

But after all the sabbath was made for 
man; and the worthlessness of such a 
sabbath as the one we have now attempt- 
ed to pourtray, is no argument against 
an institution which must be capable of a 
most important subserviency to the great 
cause of moral and religious improve- 
ment. Though often kept according to 
the oldness of the letter—that is no rea- 
son why it may not also be kept accord- 
ing to the newness of the spirit; and if 
so, then is it fully entitled to a place of 
high authority among all the other servi- 
ces of an enlightened Christianity. And 
accordingly the very services which are 
rendered by one man in the spirit of 
a couching servility as drivelling and 
pharisaical, may, when rendered by an- 
other, be the genuine emanation of a 
heart that is altogether free and fearless 
and affectionate towards God. To the 
eye of the world, there may be a strong 
visible resemblance both im the kind and 
in the succession of these exercises— 
while to ihe eye of God, and in respect 
of essential character, they differ as wide- 
ly as light does from darkness. It makes 
the utmost possible dissimilarity between 
one human soul and another, whether 
the sabbath be like a fast that affects the 
soul, or like a feast that yields to it its 
best loved entertainment. In the one 
case, it is certainly possible to be most 
sternly resolved on the drudgery of all its 
services—even as it is possible for a man 
of the world, on the mere strength of an 
obstinate determination, to stand out for 
hours together the hallowed air of a con- 
venticle of piety however hateful it may 
be to him. But it argues a man of a dis- 
tinct moral species altogether, and to be 
endowed as it were with such organs o. 
moral respiration as the other does not 
possess, who can breathe in that air with 
delight, and feels it to be the very ele- 
ment by which he loves most to be sur- 
rounded. So that the wretched sabbath 
history, which we have already offered 
to your notice, is quite another thing, 
from a history which bears to it a very 


54 


strong external resemblance ; but is im- 
pregnated by wholly another spirit, and 
is sustained throughout all the stages of 
it by another principle—The history not 
of a sabbath drudge, but of a sabbath am- 
ateur, who rises with alacrity to the de- 
light of the hallowed services that are be- 
fore him—who spends too his own hour 
of morning communion with his God, 
and from the prayer-opened gate of heav- 
en catches upon his soul a portion of 
heaven’s gladness—who gathers too his 
family around the household altar, and 
there diffuses the love and the sacred joy 
which have already descended upon his 
own bosom—who walks along with 
them to the house of prayer; and, in pro- 
portion as he fills them with his own 
spirit, so does he make the yoke of con- 
finement easy and its burden light unto 
them—who plies them with their even- 
ing exercise, but does it with a father’s 
tenderness, and studies how their task 
shall become their enjoyment—who 
could, but for example’s sake, walk fear- 
lessly abroad and recognise in the beau- 
ties of nature the hand that has graced 
and adorned it; but that still a truer 
charm awaits him in the solitude of his 
own chamber, where he can hold con- 
verse with the piety of other days, with 
some worthy of a former generation who 
being dead still speaketh, with God him- 
self im the book of His testimony, or with 
God in prayer whom he blesses for such 
happy moments of peace and of precious- 
ness. And so he concludes a day, not 
in which his spirit has been thwarted, but 
in which his spirit has been regaled—a 
day of sunshine to the recurrence of 
which he looks onward with cheerful- 
ness—a day of respite from this world’s 
‘cares—a day of rejoicing participation in 
the praises and spiritual beatitudes of the 
future world. 

Now if you have no taste for such a 
sabbath as this, you have no taste for 
heaven. If these services be a weariness 
to your heart, then the services of the 
blest in eternity were also a weariness to 
your heart. You are still of the earth 
and earthly; and when this world is 
burnt up, and the whole universe is 
thrown into two great departments—of a 
sabbath and sainted territory on the one 
hand, where the redeemed and the un- 
fallen alike rejoice in the prayers and 


CHRISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. 


[SERM. 


praises of the Eternal ; and a doleful re 

gion of blasphemy on the other, where 
be those accursed outcasts who bear ne 
love to God and have no delight in the 
exercises of godliness—Then recollect, 
that, beside the one and the other of these 
dominions, there is not one spot of ground 
like this temporary and intermediate 
earth that you will have to stand upon.— 
And, distasteful as you are of sacredness 
here, and with no other alternative there 
than sacredness for ever or suffering for 
ever, what other doom is left for, us to 
pronounce upon you, who so love the oc- 
cupations of this week-day world, and so 
droop and languish under the weary 
routine of sabbath prayers and sabbath 
services, than that when the world is dis- 
solved and no place is found within the 
limits of creation but one abode for the 
celestial and another for the damned— 
then will this your dislike to. the fourth 
commandment be indeed the fellest in- 
dication of your unmeetness for a seat 
of glory, of your being a vessel of wrath 
and fitted for destruction. 

You will perceive then a very striking 
peculiarity in this sabbath law—that, per- 
haps of all: others, it is best fitted to 
exemplify the distinction between the old- 
ness of the letter and the newness of the 
spirit; and is at the same time so abun- 
dantly capable of being kept im the latter 
style of observation, as most abundantly 
entitles it to its old place in the decalogue 
even under the pure and enlightened 
economy of the gospel. In one way of 
it, it may be nothing better than an 
elaborate ceremonial, a lifeless body of 
religiousness without the breath of its 
warm and animating spirit, and whereby 
the starch and unbending formalist of our 
day can still exhibit the very gait and 
character of grossest Judaism. In the 
other way of it, it may have all the refine- 
ment and rationality of a service that 
is altogether celestial; and be the efflo- 
rescence of a heart that is touched with 
fire and feeling from the upper sanctuary; 
and be the truest symptom that can possi- 
bly be given of a spiritual taste and a 
spiritual affection; and with all its out- 
ward resemblance to the sabbath of a 
formalist, stand as much apart from it in 
essential character as the devotion of 
a seraph from the drivelling of a slave ; 
and, so far from savouring of that earthly 


vu. 


Jerusalem where Pharisees of old heaped 
their laborious offerings on the altar 
of legality, may the Sabbath of a Chris- 
tian be the very nearest specimen that 
occurs in our world of that Jerusalem 
above where all is freedom and confi- 
dence and good will. And distaste, we 


repeat it, for the services of such a sab- 


bath as this, is just distaste for the services 
of eternity. The very commandment, 
which, when kept in the spirit of a fear- 
ful scrupulosity, argues you to be still 
in beggary and bondage, is the com- 
mandment that, when kept in the willing- 
ness of a spontaneous heart, argues you 
to have the exalted taste and liberty 
of one of God’s children: And it is in- 
deed a striking singularity of this ob- 
servance, that though when punctually 
rendered against the grain, it is but the 
drudgery of a worthless superstition—yet 
when pleasantly rendered and because 
with the grain, it becomes kindred. in 
quality with all that is most pure and 
ethereal in sacredness; and the best evi- 
dence that can be given of the regenerat- 
ing touch, whereby earth-born man is 
assimilated to an angel, and becomes a 
new creature in Christ our Lord. 

We have now only to say in conclu- 
sion of this part of our argument, that 
something more ought to be gained by it, 
than the mere specific object of evincing 
the Sabbath to be in full harmony with 
the spirit and character of the Gospel. 
We should like, if, in the course of these 
observations, any thing may have been 
said that is fitted to arrest the conscience 
of hearers. We think that the Sabbath 
may be turned into a very palpable and 
powerful instrument for the discovery of 
your real spiritual condition. You will 
know surely whether its peculiar servi- 
ces are felt by you to be a pleasure or an 
annoyance—whether there be dulness or 
delight in its psalmody—whether the 
longing of the soul be towards its retire- 
_ ments, or towards a relief from them— 
whether the morning be most rejoiced in, 
because it ushers in a day of sacredness, 
or the evening because it terminates the 
irksome round, and brings you again to 
the margin of that e.ement in which you 
most love to exputiate. You will be able 
to tell whether you are most at home 
in your closets or in your countinghou- 
ses? You have spent many Sabbaths in 


“CHRISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. 


55. 


the world; and you may at least say 
from the recollection of them, whether 
your taste is for communion with God, 
and how far the spirit that is in you con- 
genializes with the feelings and the exer- 
cises of piety. We are not aware of a 
better test, or of one that can be turned to 
readier use and application; and we 
therefore urge it upon you, to come to a 
conclusion upon the question—whether 
your heart be more set upon the things 
of the world among which you move 
and are busily conversant through the 
six days of the week ; or on those things 
that are above, and to which the duties 
and opportunities of the seventh day 
give you the power of a nearer and more 
affecting approximation—whether you 
like it best, to be immersed in the business 
and the pleasure and companionship of a 
scene that is speedily to pass away; 
or to stand as it were at the gate and on 
the confines of that inheritance which 
is in heaven, and there catch a glimpse 
of its coming glories, and be refreshed by 
a sample and a foretaste of its coming 
blessedness? Tell us which is the drift of 
your prevailing inclinations? Whether 
be they towards the secularities of com- 
mercial or festive or fashionable life, 
or be they towards the serenities of faith 
and prayer and spiritual contemplation ? 
We ask you not to lie overwhelmed 
in utter hopelessness, if heretofore it is 
too plain that you have been a child 
of the present world—without the taste 
for sacredness, and with scarcely an 
aspiration after it. But we do ask you 
to mark by the intelligible appeal that 
we have now made to you, how wide the 
transition is from the atmosphere of na- 
ture’s every-day pursuits and every-day 
propensities, to the atmosphere of all that 
grace and goodness in which if you can- 
not breathe with comfort here, you will 
never breathe in heaven hereafter. We 
bid you reflect what a vast and untrodden 
distance you have still to walk, ere you 
reach a meetness for the joys and a taste 
for the sanctities of the upper paradise. 
We crave your attention to the vas 
immeasurable space by which humanity 
has receded from the ground which 1 
once occupied, and become as an alien 
and an outcast in a far country from the 
great family of holiness ; and we would 
put vou the question, whether to the truth 


» 


56 


of Scripture there is not an echo in your 
own experience—-when you read how 
total the revolution of character must be 
—how a something tantamount to a new 
birth and a new creation must take effect 
upon the soul, ere you shall become 
an heir of the everlasting kingdom, or 
have entered on that course of grace 
which leads to a consummation of full 
and finished glory 2° 

But how shall this transition be 
effected 2? How shall the soul be made 
to gather upon it a taste and a temper so 
opposite to that of its first nature? How 
shall it be made to relish as its best loved 
enjoyment, that which it has hitherto felt 
to be irksome and unsavoury? Won- 
derful change in the habit of the affec- 
tions you will allow, if he who at one 
time nauseated the air of the public or 
private sanctuary, shall now breathe 
therein with delight, as in the element 
that is best suited to him—and the Sab- 
bath from a service of weariness shall 
become a service of willingness. This 
would imply a change equivalent to that 
by which the old man is transformed 
into the new creature—and it will be seen 
that our present topic though in regard 
to the matter of it it be but one solitary 
and specific observation, yet when viewed 
in its proper bearing it rises into a ques- 
tion of general and paramount impor- 
tance—for the question how shall I learn 
to love the Sabbath is commensurate 
to the question how shall I be so renewed 
in the spirit of my mind, as that 1 who 
have been heretofore carnal, and whose 
affections were only kindred with the 
objects of sense, and of intellect, shall 
now become spiritual, and have a kin- 
dred pleasure in the objects and the con- 
templations of sacredness ? 

[It may serve to throw some light on 
the real difficulties of this transition, 
when we reflect on what that is which 
we can do, and what that is which we 
cannot do in reference to Sabbath obser- 
vation. We can task ourselves with the 
manifold varieties of bodily exercise. 
We can forcibly withdraw our presence 
from the fields, and constrain our pres- 
ence either to church or to our closets. 
We can by dint of mere strenuousness 
endure a Sabbath confinement however 
irksome, and breathe a sabattic atmos- 
phere however dull; but to turn the irk- 


CHRISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. 


[SERM. 


some into the agreeable, and what is dull 
in the Sabbath of the Lord to feel it a de- 
light and honourable—in attempting this, 


-with only the resources and the energies 


of Nature at command, man feels himself 
at the limit of his helplessness. He can 
no more change the taste of his heart 
from the creature to the Creator, than he 
can change his organic taste for the — 
kinds of food that are set before him. 
He may force himself to that which 
is nauseous to his animal palate, but 
he cannot divest it of its nauseousness ; 
nor can he bid his spiritual palate to 
relish the hallowedness of Sabbath, how- 
ever much he may compel himself to 
the drudgery of its manifold observations. 
The anatomy of his moral frame would 
need to be reconstructed, ere such a rev- 
olution of taste could be made to take 
effect upon it; and this he can no more 
do, than he can newmodel the anatomy 
of his morbid frame: And thus it is, that 
while quite a possible thing to keep the 
Sabbath in the style of a most sour and 
unbending formalist—it is no more pos- 
sible for man to keep it in the style of a 
free and joyful and affectionate worship- 
per, than it is for a man at his own | 
bidding to make all things new, or for man 
to be the author of his own regeneration. 

It all resolves itself into the distinction 
between the spirit of love and the spirit 
of legality. Could you exchange the 
one spirit for the other, then would you 
turn Sabbath from a day of constraint 
into a day of cheerfulness. You never 
will get the better of your distaste for 
the religiousness of Sabbath—while you 
look upon God in the light of a jealous 
taskmaster, and yourselves in the light of 
bondmen who have an allotted task to 
perform, and by rendering ali the items 
of which you eke out the fulfilment of a 
stimulated contract. [t is this accursed 
spirit of legality which turns Sabbath 
service and every other service, into a 
heartless thing of distaste disquietude 
and most unproductive anxiety ; and never 
will this day be kept aright, till, out of 
the new-born desires of an evangelized 
heart, it be kept, not as a fast to afflict the © 
soul, but as a feast to regale it—not as a 
service of desert for which you obtain the 
friendship of God, but as a service of 
orateful commemoration in return for the 
friendship that has been already prof- 


VEL] 


fered, and already been accepted of. 
You will not know what it -is to have a 


religious, and, at the same time a free 
Sabbath, till you have embraced the of- 
fers of a free Gospel; and then all will 
be light, and liberty, and enlargement ; 
and the cold obstructions of legality will 
give way from the labouring bosom ; 
and the opportunity of meeting with God 
as your undoubted friend will be prized 
and courted—when the opportunity of 
meeting with him as your rigid and un- 
relenting exactor would be looked to 
with feelings of timidity and distrust and 
heavy alienation. It is the Gospel which 
refines and elevates the whole style of 
our obedience. It is the Gospel which 
turns it from the extorted drudgery of a 
crouching fearful superstitious slave, into 
the ready services of attachment. And 
as it is saying much, on the one hand, 
for the doctrines of grace and atonement 
and righteousness by faith, that it is .the 
acceptance of these which forms the step- 
ping-stone from service in the oldness of 
the letter to service in the newness of 
spirit—so it is saying much on the other 
hand for Sabbath, and for its title to rank 
among the institutions of Christianity ; 
that, instead of a mere positive and cere- 
monial observance, which ought to be 
expunged from our more enlightened 
economy, there is not one other precept 
of the decalogue that admits of being 
more evangelized, or of having a brighter 
and more beautiful radiance of celestial 
grace and celestial glory thrown over it. 
The services of Sabbath upon earth, form 
the very nearest approximation that can 
be made to the current and every-day 
services in Heaven. He who does not 
love them loves not God. He who 
droops in weariness under the exercises 
of Sabbath, has nought before him but a 
dismal prospect of eternity. There is 
none admitted to Heaven, to whom 
Heaven were a dull and melancholy im- 
prisonment; and there will be no mid- 
way territory like our present earth, be- 
tween the Heaven of the redeemed and 
the hell of the rebellious. It forms in- 
deed an emphatic argument to flee from 
the coming wrath, and to flee for refuge 
to the hope set before you in the Gospel 
—that it is not only on this ground 
where forgiveness and a free acceptance 
are awarded ; but on this ground, and on 


CHRISTIANITY OF Ths SABBATH. 5a 


it alone, can we learn to love that law 
which we aforetime hated, and to rejoice 
in those observations that we aforetime 
resisted and trampled upon. And if you 
indeed long for such a revolution in your 
taste and in your desires, as that Sabbath 


shall cease to be an oppression, and be-* 


come to you a day of hallowed and hon- 
ourable enjoyment—never cease to fix 
your regards on Christ crucified, till, 
through Him, all your legal apprehen- 
sions have given way, and you can re- 
joice in God as indeed your faithful 
friend, as indeed your reconciled Father. 

And this seems to be the right place 
for adverting to a very common aphor- 
ism that is constantly on the lips of 
worldly men—at one time in the form of 
reproach against the seriousness of de- 
cided Christians, and at another of vin- 
dication for their own levity ; and that 
is, that religion was never meant for 
gloom but for enjoyment—that Christian- 
ity is always in her best style, when in 
the style of cheerfulness—that, in her 
strict, and precise, and puritanical aspect 
she is the scourge and the terror of our 
species—and that it is only by the relax- 
ation of this aspect, that she is put into 
accordancy with the real spirit and char- 
acter of Him who has drest nature in 
smiles: and who, God of love as He is, 
can have no sweeter incense to ascend to 
Him from our world than the happiness 
of a grateful and rejoicing family. And 
thus it is, that they would seek for coun- 
tenance to their own vain and giddy gra- 
tifications—in pleasures and amusements, 
not where God is recognised, but in the 
raidst of which God is utterly forgotten ; 
to that merriment of the heart which is 
inspired, not by any cheering and at the 
same time accurate thoughts of their 
heavenly Father, but to that merriment 
which has its foundation in the thought- 
lessness of merest unconcern and vacancy. 
‘T’he maxim is a true one, but they utterly 
misconceive its application. Religion is 
indeed the minister, not of gloom, but of 
enjoyment; but of enjoyment only to them 
whose hearts have been so touched as to be 
attuned to the spirit and the feelings of sa- 
credness. The genuine style of Christian- 
ity is that of cheerfulness ; but the way in 
which it breathes cheerfulness into the 
soul, is, not by altering its own character for 
the purpose of accommodating itself to the 


58 


castes of the unconverted, but by altering 
the tastes of the unconverted, through 
the renewing process which they are 
made to undergo, to its own uncompro- 
mising and invariable character. The 
maxim is just; but not the slightest au- 
“thority does it give to the glee, and the 
gaiety, and the joyous companionship, of 
Sabbath profanation. To rejoice in 
God is a habit of the soul, not merely 
different, but diametrically opposite to the 
habit of him who rejoices without God ; 
and all the zest and vivacity of whose 
pleasures, any visitation of seriousness 
would instantly put to flight. The 
maxim most assuredly is just, and bears 
with emphatic condemnation on the 
weary and ever-doing formalist—who 
toils at his Sabbath duties, with a hand 
most punctual to their fulfilment, and a 
spirit fretted and galled as if by the felt 
burden of so many painful and ponder- 
ous austerities. The maxim that Chris- 
tianity is a free and indulgent religion 
condemns this Sabbath drudge, but it 
does not acquit the Sabbath despiser ; and 
then only does it find its satisfying appli- 
cation, when the first light of Sabbath 
ziorn summons the affectionate disciple 
to those kindred exercises of piety in 
which his heart is most fitted to rejoice 
who goes not sadly but spontaneously to 
that which, animated as he is with the 
breath of another spirit, he feels not as a 
painful task, but as a precious opportu- 
nity—and like the Christians of old can 
eat his meat with gladness and single- 
ness of heart, not because like those who 
take shelter in the maxim that religion is 
averse to melancholy, his delight is in 
sense or in unsanctified appetite; but 
because his delight is in converse with 
God. 

Were heaven a mere paradise of mu- 
sic—then, to attain the capacity of enjoy- 
ing it, one would need to be a lover of 
harmony. It is conceivable that a musi- 
cal festival, held at short periodic inter- 
vals, were the fittest preparation for ob- 
taining and fostering the musical taste, 
and so fur being hapny in such an im- 
mortality as this. ‘hose who had de- 
light in the beauty of airs and the sweet 
concord of voices, would welcome the 
recurrence of every coming festival as 
they would a joyful entertainment ; and, 
whether in the ecstatic pleasure felt dur- 


CHRISTIANITY OF THE SsBBATH, 


i that shall meet them there. 


[SERM, 


ing the currency of the performance or 
in the grateful emotions that were left 
behind it, would they bear an obvious 
countenance of satisfaction ; and as, they 
sent forth the beamings of a regaled and 
recreated spirit, might they impress the 
conviction upon many, that those men 
who are the most strenuously bent on 
their education for Heaven are at the 
same time the happiest upon earth.— | 
Others again, without any taste for mu- 
sic whatever, may give any unwearied 
attendance to the festival ; and determin- 
edly support the whole irksomeness of its 
uncongenial confinement; and, utterly 
against the drift of their own native ten- 
dencies, sit out the oppressive hours of a 
heat and a noise that are well nigh in- 
supportable ; and all] this too on the ima- 
gination, that heaven was to be conferred 
upon them, as the payment of wages for 
all the painfulness and self-denial of this 
unvaried regularity. But alas! when 
they get to the heaven of our present sup- 
position, music will be the only reward 
That music. 
which so sickened and fatigued them in - 
time, will be all the entertainment they 
have to look for through eternity: And 
who does not see by such an illustration 
as this, that the Sabbath formalist will 
miss the happiness of both worlds—un- 
happy here because drivelling all his 
days at a work that is utterly unconge- 
nial to his spirit ; and unhappy there, be- 
cause, even should he enter within heav- 
en’s gate and it be shut upon him, he 
finds himself in the midst of that very 
work, which, though a delicious treat to 
others, was always to him a reluctant 
task, and the feeling of which still will 
turn the paradise in which he dwells into 
a dull and everlasting imprisonment.— 
Now, though it be the happy and not the 
reluctant disciple of music who can re- 
joice in the musical heaven, that is not to 
say that he who is only happy in other 
things will ever reach it—that he who 
prefers the liberty and fresh air of the 
general world to the lessons of the recur- 
ring festival, will, because happy in his 
own style here, be in fit preparation for 
the happiness of another style hereafter. 
And neither does it follow, ye gay and 
unreflecting men of the world, because 
like unto the best and highest of Christ- 
ians in being cheerful, you will ever sit 


ere ee 


= 


PET OE ge oy 


Viil.] 


down with them as the partakers of a 
cheerful eternity. Your happiness is of 
sense, and theirs is of spirit; and the 
paradise for which they are training by 
the exercises of the weekly Sabbath festi- 
val, instead of a mere paradise of music, 
is a paradise of sacredness. And think 
not ye men, in all whose joys and pur- 
suits there is the secularity of a world 
that soon fadeth away—think not of as- 


ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABSATH, 59 


similating the reckless hilarity of your 
bosoms, to the heaven-born joy that glows 
in the bosom,of a spiritual Christian.— 
Or despisers as ye are of that Sabbath 
which to him is the source of hallowed 
and heavenly delight, that ever you, with 
your present habit, will realise any other 
condition than that of being left without 
pleasure and without a portion through 
eternity. 


SERMON VIII. 


The Advantages of a fixed Sabbath. 


** Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.”—Gat. iv. 10. 


THERE are two distinct grounds, on 
which works in religion are appraised 
at a low or rather worthless valuation in 
the Bible, and either rejected or de- 
nounced accordingly. The first is when 
they are offered as the price of our justi- 
fication in the sight of God ; as an equi- 
valent upon which the Lawgiver is 
challenged for the honour and the re- 
gard that are due to righteousness ; as an 
acquittal on our side of that bargain 
where the obedience of the creature 
forms one part, and the good will of the 
Creator forms the other part of the sti- 
pulation that is betwixt them. A work 
may be entitled in certain respects to the 
designition of good; but when this good 
work assumes the character of purchase- 
money for eternal life, and in so doing 
assumes that the thing which is rendered 
by man is in the reckoning of the divine 
law, satisfactory value for the thing that 
is given to him by God in return for it 
—then does the Bible utterly hold at 
nought, the most laborious, and, per- 
haps, when looked to in another view, 
the most holy and estimable of all hu- 
man performances. ‘This is a point 
upon which the gospel, earnest to enlig ht- 
en manas to the worth of his acceptance 
with God, and as to the worthlessness in 
regard to merit of his own proper pre- 
tensions to it, will descend to no compro- 
mise whatever with the vanity or the 
deceitful imaginations of our fallen spe- 
cies, Acceptance with God is most 


liberally held forth on the footing of a 
present to the sinner; but it is most 
firmly and tenaciously kept back on the 
footing of a purchase by the sinner. 
Still, however, it was bought for us; or 
rather after it had been forfeited, it was 
redeemed for us, and at a ransom too, 
altogether commensurate to its value. 
There was a price given for it; but that 
price 1s neither in whole nor in part the 
contribution of the sinner himself. He 
is welcome, if he will, to God's favour. 
Nay, he is welcome to this favour by 
being put into possession, if he will, of 
a positive right to it; but then he must 
understand that it is not a right conceded 
to him, because of any claim of merit 
whatever in his own performances. He 
must learn more justly to estimate the 
value of this right to the favour of a God 
of holiness ; and that it cannot be rated 
according to the righteousness of man, 
but according to the righteousness of 
Christ's atonement and holy services. 
To cheapen the right of man to Heaven’s 
reward down to the standard of man’s 
obedience, were to degrade to the same 
standard the righteousness of God. And 
thus to sustain the dignity of God’s char- 
acter, does the gospel disown, and re- 
pudiate man’s works, when accompanied 
with the plea for divine favour, as their 
just and adequate remuneration. 

But there is still another ground on 
which works are computed ata low va: 
luation in the Bible—and that is, when, 


60 


either in themselves they are devoid of 
true moral excellence, or serve not in 
their tendencies to refine and to strength- 
en the principles of our moral nature. 
If the work in question carry in it no 
indication either of love to God, or of 
love to man,—if there be in it no char- 
acter of spiritual worth, or spiritual 
rectitude,—if, on tracing it to its first im- 
pulse from a principle within the heart, 
it betoken no becoming grace, or no 
duteous and incumbent morality, which 
should have its residence there,—if it 
neither flow from some good affection of 
the heart, nor be of any reflex efficacy 
in making the heart better,—in a word, 
if disjoined from the virtue of the inner 
man, it be a mere muscular or mechanical 
action, which affords an exercise, and 
gives weariness to the body,—if it be 
‘merely some operose task, or some irk- 
some confinement, laid upon the person, 
which, after it had been resolutely gone 
through, or resolutely endured, terminates 
in itself, and leaves no increase, either of 
godliness or of humanity, behind it,—if, 
instead of appertaining to any thing of 
mind that is devout, or upright, or gen- 
erous, it be a work that can be done by 
a mere putting forth of the animal pow- 
ers, and which, after its performance 
leaves its laborious agent as little en- 
nobled, in his spirit, above the animal as 
before—Then, on this ground, also, 
does the Bible hold it to be of as utter 
insignificance as the Saviour held the 
fasts, and the ablutions, and the whole 
fatiguing and fruitless ceremonial of the 
drivelling Pharisee. The former works 
were offensive, because, like many of the 
works of Popery, they assume a merit 
in the sight of a highly exalted God. 
The latter works are offensive, because, 
like many of the works of Popery—as 
its penances, and its offerings, and its 
telling of rosaries—they have a mean- 
ness in the sight of every truly enlight- 
ened man. And as, to sustain the dig- 
nity of God, the Gospel holds out a 
countenance of rebuke towards those 
works of presumption on which we 
would found the claim of our legal 
righteousness for reward from the Law- 
giver—so, for the sake of stamping a 
true dignity upon man, does the Gospel 
also hold out a countenance of rebuke 
towards those works of superstition 





ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. 


which He hath called us. 


{sERM. 


which serve not to exalt or to purify the 
soul; and which varied or multiplied in 
every possible way, can never shed upon 
him who performs them either the grace 
or the lustre of a true personal right- 
eousness. 

But let a good work be delivered of 
both these ingredients—let there be nei- 
ther an arrogated merit nor an inherent — 
meanness in 1t—let the sinner who per- 
forms it inflict no offence on the unspotted 
righteousness of God, by offering it in 
price for that which nought can purchase 
for the guily but an unsullied obedience 
and a perfect expiation ; and, at the same 
time, let it be such a good work as serves, 
not to degrade, but to dignify, the per- 
former, and as both marks and matures 
the real worth and growing excellence 
of his character—let it be free of all pre- 
tension to the reward which has been 
forfeited by man, and which a Divine 
Mediator alone can redeem to him; and, 
at the same time, let it, in its own sub- 
stance, be free of all pettiness and abject 
timidity—And we say of works like unto 
this, that, so far from the Gospel lifting | 
a voice of hostility or casting a look of 
discountenance towards them, the very 
aim of the Gospel is to raise and to mul- 
tiply them over the face of a new moral 
creation. ‘The ultimate design which the 
Gospel has upon man, is not to redeem 
his person, but to renovate his character 
—not to lift off from him the weight of 
condemnation, that, under the deliver- 
ance, he may merely sit at ease; but 
that, thereby, he may be free to enter on 
a course of activity, along which he is 
ever approximating to the worth and 
holiness of the Godhead. For this, in 
fact, as the great and terminating object, 
was the whole peculiar economy of the 
Gospel raised. For this did Christ die, 
that the men of nature and of the world 
might become men of God, and be per- 
fect, and thoroughly furnished unto all — 
good works. He, by His propitiation, 
hath made us partakers of the Divine 
approbation, but just that we might be- 
come partakers of the Divine nature 
The justification, which He hath bought 
for us, is only the door of admittance 
upon the career of glory and virtue to 
In the works 
which we do, let the merit of Christ be 
fully recognized, and the example of 


Vut.} 


Christ free as it is from debasing super- 
stition, and bright as it is in all the 
graces of essential rectitude, be fully re- 
garded ; and the declared purpose of the 
Gospel is, upon the basis of such a hu- 
mility, to build up every believer accord- 
ing to the similitude of this godlike pat- 
tern. It is not to damp his enthusiasm 
im the cause of good works, but to make 
him zealous of them. And, after rooting 
out the weeds, both of legal presumption 
and of worthless formality, from the soil 
of our nature—is it the office of the Gos- 
pel to turn it into a well-watered garden, 
over which the eye of Heaven might 
rejoice im the reflection of its own like- 
ness ; and even the best and holiest of all 
be regaled by its sweet-smelling odours, 
and look down with complacency on its 
fair and pleasant fruits of righteousness. 
Nothing can be more obvious in the 
epistle to the Galatians, than the express 
disinclination and dread of the Apostle 
towards certain works; but then these 
were works tainted with the alloy of 
both the obnoxious ingredients—as when 
a justifying merit was assigned to the 
rite of cireumcision—and then, what did 
its performance avail to the great object 
either of purifying or of elevating the 
moral character? But with all his re- 
probation of such works, and after it 
might have been imagined by some that 
he had extinguished works altogether, 
mark how, ere he finishes his argument, 
they are made to re-appear upon the 
Christian, and to replenish both his heart 
and his history with the richest variety 
of excellence. It is, indeed, interesting 
to notice how the transition is secured in 
the Gospel from the humble to the holy, 
—how, if the creature will only renounce 
the worth of his own services, and seek 
unto God with the righteousness of Christ 
as the only price and the only plea he 
ean offer for acceptance, how, from this 
abyss of felt and acknowledged n®thing- 
ness, God will cause him to arise,—how, 
if he will only stand denuded of alt that 
virtue which he deemed noble enough 
for the rewards of eternity, a virtue shall 
be inspired into his bosom, and made to 
effloresce upon his Hife, that really will 
ennoble him. And thus it is, that while 
m those compends of Christianity which 
Paul left behind him, both the decencies 
of nature and the drudgeries of supersti- 


ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. 





61 


tion are, in respect of their sufficiency 
with God, supplanted and set aside by 
the faith of the Gospel ; yet he never fails 
to represent that faith as emanating an 
obedience of a higher order, that is free 


from both the vitiating admixtures—alike 


dignified in its charaeter, and unpretend- 
ing in its claims. 

In the text too, there is a certain scru- 
pulous observation referred to by the 
apostle, which his converts adhered toas 
a duty, but which he charges them with 
as if it were a delinquency. ‘They ob- 
served days and months and times and 
years, annexing a religious importance 
to the stated acts and exercises of stated 


periods ; and we have no doubt, labour- 


mg under distress of conscience, at any 
misgiving from the prescribed and wont- 
ed regularity. It is likely enough, that 
both of those ingredients which go to 
vilify a work, and to render it null and 
worthless, entered into this outward for- 
mality of the Galatians—that it gave them 
a feelmg of security as to their meritor+ 
ous acceptance with God, which nought 
but the Redeemer’s merits ought to in- 
spire; and that it further degraded the 
character of man, by redueing morality 
to the level of mechanism, and substitu 
ting for the obedience of a rightly strung 
and rightly actuated heart, an obedience 
like that of a galley slave who plies at his 
unvaried oar and moves in the one and 
unvaried circuit that is assigned to him. 
Man was not made for this. He was 
not even made for the Sabbath; and 
neither surely was he made to go through 
the seasons of his existence, like the 
figures upon an orrery. He was not 
made to square the movements of his per- 
son with the lines or the convolutions of 
a diagram—nor was it ever intended of 
this creature, endowed as he is with the 
noble capacities of thought and sentiment 
and spontaneous affection, that time 
should lay her arrest on the free-born 
energies of his nature, or subjugate him 
to the dull routine of her cycles and her 
epicycles. This may do for a piece of 
unconscious materialism, or it may do for 
a beast of burden; and the cruel task 
master man has made it to do for the 
yoked and harnessed negro, who, day 
after day, toils on that beaten path-way 
of labour, to which a stern and unchan- 
ging necessity has compelled: him. But 


62 


shall the spirit of him who knows the 
truth, and whom the truth has made free, 
be laid under the bondage and the beg- 
gary of such grovelling services? ‘There 
was something more than jealousy for 
. the prerogatives of Christ’s righteousness, 
which inspired the apostle’s antipathy to 
the whole work and labour of the Gala- 
tians. We think that there was also a 
generous and high-toned ambition, that 
while to Christ should be awarded all the 
glory to which he was entitled, on man 
should be imprinted all the grace and 
dignity of which he was capable—that 
he should be rescued from the degrada- 
tion of those poor and meagre and creep- 
ing servilities, which were stealing their 
entrance into the churches; and that for 
such paltry and pitiful rudiments, there 
should be substituted the light/of a higher 
morality, the love and the liberty of the 
children of God. 

But then will not this expunge the 
Sabbath from the observation of Chris- 
tians—that day which comes as invaria- 
bly round to us as a lunation in the 
heavens—that day the keeping of which 
compels us to move in the dull uniform- 
ity of a circle; and which, instead of 
leaving him to the free aspirations of a 
a heart that knows no control but that of 
high and heaven-born principle, would 
still reduce the man to an automaton ? 
And does not Paul in the parallel epistle 
of Colossians, turn his argument to this 
very application? “ Let no man there- 
fore judge you in meat or in drink, or in 
respect of an holy day, or of the new 
moon, or of Sabbath days.” Does not 
he here set them utterly at large from all 
the prescriptions of the ritualist; and 
fearlessly commit them to the guidance 
of such principles, as are drawn from a 
loftier morality, and are addressed to the 
nobler feelings and the higher faculties 
of our species? Does not he call upon 
us to abandon altogether the walk of 
ceremonial observation for the walk of 
spiritual exercises; and is not the Sab- 
bath levelled, and laid under the same 
interdict, with all the other drudgeries of 
the Pharisee or the formalist? Were it 
not accordant then with the character, 
nay, even with the demands of the gos- 
pel that this institution should be hence- 


ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. 





[SERM. 


be left in its room, if the regenerated 
spirit when broken loose from its im- 
prisonment, shall, in the genius of our 
better economy, expatiate without ob- 
struction on the more ethereal field of its 
own fellowship with the upper sanctuary, 
and of its own secret but seraphic con- 
templations ? 

Now though it be true that man was 
not made for the Sabbath, yet let it never 
be forgotten that the Sabbath was made 
for man. Man was not made to move in 
a precise orbit of times and seasons; yet 
times and seasons may be arrarged, so 
as to subserve his use, and be the minis- 
ters of good both to his natural and moral 
economy. Were the keeping the Sab- 
bath a mere servitude of the body which 
left the heart no better than before, it 
would be a frivolous ceremonial and 
ought to be exploded. But if it be true 
that he who sanctifies the Sabbath sancti- 
fies his own soul, then does the Sabbath 
assume a spiritual importance, because 
an expedient of spiritual cultivation. The 
suspension on this day of the labour o1 
business of the world—its scrupulous re 
tirement from the converse or the festivi 
ties of common intercourse—its solemn 
congregations and its evening solitudes— 
These singly and in themselves, may not 
be esteemed as moralities ; and yet be en- 
titled to a high pre-eminence among 
them, from the impulse they give to that 
living fountain of piety, out of which the 
various moralities of life ever come forth 
in purest and most plenteous emanation. 
It is not that the virtue of man consists in 
these things, but that these things are de- 
vices of best and surest efficacy for up- 
holding the virtue of man. Were it not 
for this subserviency, the Sabbath might 
well be swept away; but because of this 
subserviency, it not only takes its place 
among the other obligations of Christian- 
ity, but is entitled to that reverence which 
is due if not to the parent at least to the 
foster-mother of themall. If the Sabbath 
of any one of the primitive churches-ob- 
tained not this homage from the apostle, 
it must have been because a Sabbath of 
ceremonial drudgery and not of spiritual . 
exercise. And you have only to com- 
pute the worth and the celestial charac- 
ter of all those graces, which have shel- 


‘orth swept away ; and will not enough | tered and fed and reared to maturity in 


vil.) 


the bosom of this institution, that you may 

own the high bearing and dignity which 
belong to it. 

If it be true of man, that he can attain 

a loftier communion with his God, at 

those hours when the din and urgency of 

the world are away from him; and that 

a season of reading, and contemplation, 

and prayer acts as a restorative to the 
_ embers of his decaying sacredness ; and 

that the voice of a minister, when prompt- 
ed by the Spirit from on high, and aided 
by the sympathies of all who are around 
him, can often send the elevation of heav- 
en into his soul; and that it is on those 
evenings of deep and lengthened tran- 
quillity which the footstep of intruding 
companionship does not violate, when the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord can 
descend more abundantly on the hearts 
of his children, and when the calm and 
the unction of a holy influence may 
be most felt in his dwelling-place—then 

Sabbath, which, from one end to the oth- 

er of it, teems with these very opportuni- 

ties, instead of ranking with the holidays 
_ of idle superstition, will be dear as piety 
_ itself to every enlightened Christian ; and 
to it, in the most emphatic sense of the 
term, will he award the obeisance of 
a divine and spiritual festival. 

And on this principle too, may the 
Sabbath be rescued from that contempt 
which the text, in denouncing the obser- 
vation of days and of times, would appear 
to cast on it. It is true, that it is a peri- 
odic festival, and that man was not made 
for periods. But this does not hinder 
that periods may be made for man. We 
have already affirmed, that Sabbath work 
is good for man to be engaged in, be- 
cause it is a work of sacredness; and the 
remaining question is simply this, Wheth- 
er will man do more of that work, if left 
every day of his life to the waywardness 
of his own desultory inclinations, or if a 
certain recurring day shall be cleared of 
this world’s concerns and companies, and 
he be reminded, that the business of reli- 
gion is its peculiar destination? It isa 
sound though homely maxim, that what 
may be done at any time is never done; 
and on this principle alone, it is good that 
a day shall be fixed upon—casting up at 
equidistant intervals, and on which the 
people of the land shall feel themselves 
more strictly and pointedly summoned to 


ADVANTAGES OF A “IXED SABBATH. 


63 


the work of intercourse with God and of 
preparation for eternity. It is good for 
man that he is not left in this matter 
to his own caprice and his own listless- 
ness—that whether he wills it or not, 
Sabbath should recur upon him at its own 
periods, and proclaim an authoritative 
halt on the business of the world—that 
this day, ushered in if you like with the 
sound of bells, should announce itself to 
his very senses as a day of sacredness— 
that it should give out another echo than 
that which falls upon the ear from the 
general buaz and action of week-day 
employment—or even that in the morn- 
ing Mace: of our streets, and that hal- 
lowed peacefulness which overspreads 
the landscape, it should have its own 
mementoes to characterise it. We put it 
to the plainest understanding, whether, 
with such an arrangement, more of busi- 
ness will not be transacted with Heaven, 
than if man were left to steal to the hour 
he chose from the bustling urgencies of 
his business in the world. And on this 
ground singly, though there were none 
beside, would we say of our Sabbath, 
that, unlike to the days and times which 
were observed by the crouching devotees 
of Galatia, it is worthy of the homage of 
the most enlightened ages, for its wise 
and merciful adaptation to the laws of 
our moral nature. 

And the maxim that what may be 
done at any time is never done, applies 
with peculiar emphasis to every work 
against which there is a srong constitu- 
tional bias—where there is a reluctance 
to begin it, and the pitching of a strenu- 
ous effort to overcome that reluctance, 
and the pleasant deception all the while 
that it will just do as well after a little 
more postponement—a deception which, 
as it overspreads the whole of life, will 
lead us to put off indefinitely ; and this in 
the vast majority of instances is tanta- 
mount to the habit of putting off irrecov- 
erably and for ever. Now this would 
just be the work of religion when shorr 
of its Sabbath—a work to embark upon 
which Nature has to arrest her strongest 
currents ; and to shake her out of her 
lethargies ; and to suspend those pursuits 
to which by all the desires of her exis- 
tence she is led most tenaciously to cleave ; 
and to struggle for the ascendancy of 
faith over sight, and of a love to the un- 


64 


seen God whom the mind with all the 
aids of solitude and prayer so dimly ap- 
prehendeth, over the love of those things 
that are in the world, and whose power 
and whose presence are so constantly 
and so importunately bearing upon us.— 
And will any say that in these cireum- 
stances, the cause of religion is not bet- 
tered by Sabbath, that weekly visitor 
coming to our door, and sounding the re- 
treat of every seventh day from the heat 
and the hurry and the onset of such man- 
ifold temptations ? It is not with dissipa- 
tion’s votaries that we are pleading this 
cause. But let us know, ye votaries of 
business, are ye able to preserve in your 
spirits through the week such a flavour 
of God and godliness, as to make you in- 
dependent of any recruits that a Sabbath 
might afford you? Does sacredness so 
keep at all times its undisturbed place 
and pre-eminence, amid the turmoil of 
those many secularities by which you 
are surrounded, that any one set and spe- 
cific time is not needed, on which, at a 
distance from the besetting werld, you 
might relume that lamp of heaven in the 
soul which was ready to expire? Or if 
the time were left to your own discretion, 
are such your longings after a spiritual 
atmosphere, that you would*be ever sure 
ty make your escape to it, when like to 
be lulled or overborne in an atmosphere 
of earthliness? It is true you may lift up 
your hearts to God when you please— 
and even amid the thickening occupations 
of the market and the counting-house, is 
it possible that many a secret aspiration 
may arise to Him. But how often is it 
that you would so please, and tell us on 
your experience of the past, what, if all 
days were alike, would be the fervour, or 
the frequency of such aspirations? How 
often does the sense of God intrude upon 
your hearts in company ; and how much 
of it do you carry abroad in the walks of 
merchandise ; or if there must be occa- 
sional retirement for the keeping up of re- 
ligion in the soul, and the time and the 
opportunity were left altogether to your- 
selves, would there be actually as much 
through the week of the work and pre- 
paration of the sanctuary as a Sabbath 
could comprise ? 

We appeal to every practical under- 
standing, whether it is not better, that 


5) 


a time has been appointed, than that the 


ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. 


[SERM. 


time should have been wholly abandoned 


to our random determinations ; and that 
God’s Sabbath should come to us, than 
that we should be trusted to find our 
spontaneous way to sabbaths and parts 
of sabbaths of our own? If in sowie 
hour of frenzied innovation our week 
were thrown into disorder, and our whole 
remembrance were obliterated of that 


day which has been consecrated by the 


observance of former generations—all — 
the piety would depart from the land, 
along with all the Sabbath punctuality 
of our venerable forefathers. If this 
sanctuary, which has hitherto been fenced 
around from the outer court of week-day 
employments, were ever trodden under 
feet by the Gentiles, it would not be the 
sacredness within that should spread 


itself abroad over the whole mass of hu- 


man existence; but the secularity from 
without would rush through the broken 
wall, and appropriate to itself the territor 
of holiness. The spirit of the world 
would engross and domineer over those 
last remnants of time which it had vio- 
lated. The Sabbath of human life may 
be like the fleece of Gideon, when it was 
dry on all the earth beside, and the dew 
of heaven was upon it only. But weare 
not to expect, till the millennium perhaps 
has come upon our world, that it shall be 
dry only upon the fleece while the dew 
is upon-all the ground; nor, should this 
day of solemn services be expunged from 
the history of man, are we to think that 
it shall offer any other aspect than one 
wide and unalleviated waste of earthli- 
ness. 

We have already, though but briefly 
and incidentally, adverted to another 
benefit arising from a fixed and regular 
day for the services of piety. It brings 
a concert and a common understanding 
along with it. And this shields every 
family retreat from the inroads’ of bois- 


terous acquaintanceship; and lays’ the 


alone effectual interdict on the callsand 
distractions of business; and not only 
throws a canopy of defence over the 
solitude of our private exercises, but 
affords to us a public and a social religion, 


and enlists the very sympathies of our na- 


ture on the side of sacredness, by impress- 
ing upon whole multitudes one’ consen- 
taneous movement to the house of prayer. 
And there is a touching power even 


vul.] 
in the visible insignia, wherewith, from 
this circumstance alone, the sabbath of 
Christians is decked and signalized—in 
the holiday costume, which is worn like 
a dress of ceremony to her honour— 
in that shut and barricadoed covering, 
which stretches along all the doors and 
windows of merchandise—in the suspen- 
sion of human labour, and that general 
hush over the face of the world which 
marks the season of its deep and serious 
repose. This is all the fruit of a conven- 
tional understanding among men, which 
nought but the authority of a sabbath 
law-could have rendered universal ; and 
it is a fine poetical delusion, that even 
the lower animals of creation, together 
with its mute and inanimate things, par- 
take in the stillness and solemnity of this 
hallowed day. It is indeed a most pleas- 
ing and allowable fancy—nor can we 
refuse our admiration to the lines which 
have so beautifully and with such tender- 
ness expressed it :— 

Calmness sits thron’d on yon unmoving cloud. 
To him who wanders o’er the upland leas, 

The black bird’s note comes mellow’r from the dale; 
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark 

W arbles the heaven-tuned song; thelulling brook 
Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn glen ; 
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke 


O’ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals 
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise. 


But our main desire ought ever to be, 


not to regale with beauty, but to urge 


you with a sense of obligation. And, 
now, having endeavoured to rescue the 
sabbath law from the imputation of its 
being a paltry ceremonial; and to re- 
commend it to the homage of enlightened 
minds; and to establish it in a rank 
co-ordinate with the highest principles of 
our moral nature; and to prove, in ex- 
_ ception to the apostolic censure passed on 
the scrupulosity of the Galatians about 
days and months and times and years, 
that our sabbath, punctually though it 
does come round as clock-work, stands 
nobly and liberally aloof from all the ig- 
noble characteristics of a drudging and 
mechanical observation—what now re- 
mains after the argument is finished, but 
fo press it home upon your conscience, 
that you turn this day to all the high 
uses and facilities of which it is so abun- 
dantly capable? If it secure the retire- 
ment of your person from the world—let 


this be followed up by the escape of your 
9 


ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. 


65 


spirit from the world’s cares and the 
world’s vanities, and by its busy exercise 
with those eternal realities which in the 
throng of ordinary life are so little 
thought of. If it open for you the place 
of solemn congregation—see that you 
forsake not the assembling of yourselves 
together, and let the intense devotedness 
of your hearts through the week to all 
that goeth on in the haunts of business, 
rebuke its many flights and wanderings 
on the sabbath from all that goeth on in 
the house of prayer. If it afford you the 
quiet leisure of evening with your house- 
hold—let it be your care to redeem the 
sacred opportunity ; and let not the neg- 
lected souls of your children, be so many 
frightful vouchers on the day of reckon- 
ing, of the many neglected sabbaths that 
you have spent upon earth. To whom 
much is given, of them much will be 
required; ‘and on this principle your 
sabbaths, these precious gifts of God to 
man will have to be accounted for. And 
O, forget not, that if these have been 
nauseated in time, Heaven, if you e’er 
were admitted there, would be nauseated 
through all eternity. Sabbath is that 
station on the territory of human life, 
from which we can descry with most 
advantage and delight the beauties of the 
promised land; and it is there, as if at 
the gate of the upper sanctuary, where 
we can command one of the nearest 
approaches whereof our nature is capable, 
to the contemplations and the doings 
of the saints in blessedness. ‘There is 
nothing else but sabbath in heaven, and 
in hell there is no sabbath. Such is the 
character of these two realms ; and judge 
for yourselves the state of human charac- 
ter that is suited to them—which is the 
likely abode of him who delights in sab- 
bath, and altogether changed with its 
spirit, therewith impregnates and sancti- 
fies the week; and which is the likelier 
abode of him whose taste the business of 
the week monopolizes, and who alto- 
gether charged with its spirit, therewith 
pollutes and desecrates the sabbath. 

And if it be true, that to set apart a 
day in the week for the business of 
Christianity, both provides a greater se- 
curity and adds a greater amount to that 
business—it is no less true that the cause 
is essentially served, by setting apart to 
the same object certain portions of each 


66 


successive day. The great use of sub- 
bath is to Christianize the whole life of 
man; but for this purpose something 
more is required than a weekly festival. 
There must be a daily repast; and we 
would extend the principle by which we 
have endeavoured to advocate the sabbath, 
into an advice, that each day should have 
its specific hours for the readings and 
the prayers, and the various exercises of 
sacredness. We know that this is a pro- 
cess which may be superstitiously gone 
through, and just as if man were made 
for the hours like a time-telling piece of 
mechanism—and then would he come 
under the denunciation of my text on the 
churches of Galatia, or under that high- 
minded contempt which is now felt for 
the mummeries and the paternosters of a 
more modern ritual. But we also know 
that this is a process which may be most 
spiritually and intelligently gone through, 
and at given hours too, because hours 
were made for man ; and he acting with 
the authority of an enlightened /udge 
over the habits and tendencies of his own 
moral nature, and experimentally aware 
that what may be done at any time is 
never done, counts it the best of arrange- 
ments for the best of objects to have 
solemn hours for solemn performances. 
It is not that we want to lay you under 
stop-watch regulation—a matter, most 
assuredly, against which Paul and every 
sensible Christian after him would pro- 
test, as quite incompatible with the relli- 
gion of liberty. But we want, and ona 
survey of the known laws and principles 
of our nature, to devise fittest and most 
effectual expedients for keepmg the free 
‘and elevated spirit of this religion alive. 
‘It is surely a good thing to make use of 
such expedients ; and our anxiety is, not 
‘that you do this thing at a given time, 
‘but to strengthen and to multiply the 
guarantees for its being done at all. 
The style of observation, which, if ter- 
niinating in itself, would be the grovelling 
of slavish and sordid devoteeship, micht, 
viewed in its consequences, be generous 
and noble, and altogether accordant with 
that higher cast of morality, which speaks 
the air and the spirit of our better dispen- 
sation. And, it is on this account, and 
on this alone, that we lay the stress even 
of a religious importance on your morn- 
ing and your evening sacrifices—that we 


ADVANTAGES GF A FIXED SABBATH. 


[SERM. 


bid you to the resolute observance of cer- 
tain select portions of the day which you 
appropriate to sacredness, and which 
nought but overbearing necessity should 
ever tempt you to violate—that like those 
regular meals which recruit the body 
from the fatigues of business, you hare 
also your regular occasions of fellowship 
with God, through prayer, or through 
the Bible, for that spiritual aliment which 
might recruit the exhaustion of your 
hearts, when the urgencies of business 
have well nigh driven the sense of judg- 
ment and eternity out of them. On the 
principle‘that man was not made for tra- 
versing in regular step and order the 
successive spaces of a diary, but for a 
nobler purpose—we forbear to assign 
either the length or the frequency of 
these holy exercises. But on the prin- 
ciple again, that time and all its various 
successions were made for man, would 
we ask you in practice thus to divide and 
thus to journalise it—and that just for 
the ncble purpose of sustaining in life al] 
the fuactions of man’s spiritual economy, 
of upholding his perseverance in that 
lo:ty path of well-doing, which leads to 
g.ory, and immortality, and honour. 
And again do we confidently put it 
to our men of business, whether if there 
were not set times for God and his bible, 
there ever would be any time—whether 
the spirit of man can thus be trusted to 
its own spontaneous cravings for the 
bread and the water of life—or if there 
be any such periodic hunger in the soul 
as there is in the body, that demands at 
short and frequent intervals of the aliment 
which is suited to it? The disease of a 
patient may call for regular air and exer- 
cise, and, such may be his indolence, 
that the stated hours must be prescribed 
to him, and the very assignation of the 
times may be the stimulus that secures 
his observance of them. And we all 
labour under a disease of the heart that 
calls for its frequent exposure and exer- 
cise In a spiritual atmosphere ; and one 
sad accompaniment of the disease is its 
disinclination to the whole breadth and 
feeling of heaven’s temperament; and to 
overcome this, there may be a weight 
of authority in the very hours which the 
patient has laid out for his own observa- 
tion. And, it is most rational and fair 
to bring in this, asan auxiliary influence 


VOL) 


on the side of religion. The theologian 
has as good a warrant for his _punc- 
tualities on this matter, as the physician 
has for his. And thoroughly aware, 
therefore, though we be, that bodily exer- 
cise profiteth little in Christianity, while 
it is godliness alone which is profitable 
unto all things—yet still do we press 
upon you the religious keeping of a cer- 
tain day every week, and of certain hours 
or parts of these hours every day ; and for 
this single reason too, not that thy body 
may go through its set and regular pro- 
strations, but that thy soul may prosper 
and be in health. 

And, think not that business will suffer 
by the encroachments which we are now 
proposing to you. Think not that the 
elevation which a closet prayer leaves 
behind it on the heart, will transport 
away your attention from the manifold 
cares and operations of the counting- 
house ; or that you will come forth.from 
the exercises of the one, indolent and dis- 
tasteful, and alienated from the exercises 
of the other. The bible recognises no 
such disjunction. On the contrary, it 
supposes that he who is fervent in spirit 
may be not slothful in business, and that 
in the departments both of work and of 
worship he alike serveth the Lord. 

A religionist is thought by some to be 
a visionary, who is in hazard of dream- 
ing when he ought to be doing; and 
who must find it ill to combine his monk- 
ish propensities to devotion with the alert 
and wakeful and ever-varying activities 
of merchandise. But this does not ex- 
perimentally hold. The very power 
and taste for order, which has led him 
to apportion his day between the labours 
of the sanctuary and those of ordinary 
life, he will carry with him into all his 
subordinate arrangements ; and the stren- 
uousness wherewith he abides by his 
hours of sacredness, will also keep him 
most poin.edly faithful and alive to the 
discharge of all his incumbent secula- 
rities ; and that sense of duty which 
impels him to the observations of his pri- 
vacy, so far from being stifled by them, 
will be strengthened and recruited for 
the affairs of society ; and the very ala- 
crity of feeling which these spiritual 
communions have given to him, will im- 
part a satisfaction and celerity and suc- 
eess to the miscellaneous agencies that 


ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. 


67 


are before him ; nor wil! his ever obtru 
sive consciousness of the eye that is above, 
disturb, but rather urge and exhilarate 
his industry the more—for he knows it 
to be an eye which has respect to his 
performances as well as to his prayers, 
and that the genuine spirit which cometh 
to him from heaven is a spirit wherewith 
the whole of human life ought to be im- 
pregnated. It is thus that the time 
which is laid out on the work that goeth 
on in the chamber of retirement, so far 
from being lost to the work that goeth on 
in the chamber of common merchandise, 
may prove a great and positive accession 
to it. It excites instead of exhausting ; 
and acting on the recorded precept of 
diligence in our callings, the spirit that 
we fetch down upon the world from the 
mount of fellowship with God, adds a 
momentum to the wheels of ordinary 
business, and not only stimulates, but me- 
thodises all its managements. A _ kin- 
dred influence is caught from Him who 
is the author of order and not of confu- 
sion, and to whom the morning has been 
consecrated. The light by which the 
heart of the worshipper is thus visited, is 
not lost on his transition to this world’s 
familiarities ; but remains with him to 
guide the history of his day, and to shed 
a useful and pleasing distribution over all 
the doings of it. 

And while we thus would propitiate 
the man of active life to a set time for 
the duties and the preparations of sacred- 
ness, we should also like the religionist 
to understand that the business, whether 
of his profession or his family, has its 
times and its seasons too; and he js not 
to practise any hurtful inroad upon these, 
even though tempted so to do by the 
strength of his spiritual appetite for spi- 
ritual joys and contemplations. It is 
doubtless a case of exceeding rarity ; 
but some there are of more ethereal 
mould, who, for hours together, can hold 
converse with God and be all the while 
in ecstasy—who, as if broken loose 
from the fetters of earthliness, and evolved 
on a beauteous field of Jight and liberty, 
can feel such transports, and breathe 
such ineffable delights, as if all the 
glories of Heaven had descended upon 
them—who, as if already borne up- 
ward to paradise, can, even in the 


body, taste of the seraphic joy that 


I~ 


68 


flows throughout that bright domain 
of love and of holiness; and who, 
feeling with Peter on the mount of 
transfiguration that it is good to be here. 
could fondly linger in the midst of a 
beatific imagery, at the sight of which 
all the cares and employments of this 
vulgar world were forgotten. The 
American missionary Brainerd, of all 
our modern devotees, could keep the 
longest and the loftiest on the wing: 
And from him therefore it is a testimony 
of exceeding weight to the lesson we 
have been labouring to inculcate, when 
he vouches for a regular distribution of 
hours, in which the business of the low- 
er world might be provided for, and be 
made to alternate with spiritual exercises 
—when he vouches for this as condu- 
cive even to the prosperity of religion in 
the soul—when he tells us, that were it 


personal Christianity, it is well that the 
affairs of earth should have their turn, 
even in the history of him whose en- 
grossing care 1s so to advance his sancti- 
fication, as that he may stand perfect and 
somplete in the whole will of God. 
After conceding thus much to the do- 
ings and the business of the world—af- 
ter giving to the work of your merchan- 
dise, and to the work of your families, 
the benefit of the principle that there is 
a time for every thing—suffer us to come 
back upon you who have hitherto occu- 


ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. 





‘to the Bible—that 


of prayer with God. 


[SERM, 


pied all your week-day hours with the 
‘throng and the thickening multiplicit 

of your week-day affairs ; and death 
‘in the name of your best and highest 
interest, that not a day shall pass over 
your heads without its allotted time for 
the concerns of your eternity. We re- 
peat it, that business will not suffer by 
your morning and evening sacrifice— 
that your ledgers will not run into con- 
fasion, though you should tie your un- 
varied half-hour’s attention every day 
our correspondence 
of penmanship with man will not run | 
into a heavier arrear, because you have 
now instituted a regular correspondence 
Time, in fact, is 
a tallent given largely and liberally to 
us all; and it only depends on our own 
use and distribution of it, that we find 


in it an ample sufficiency for every 
for nothing more than the health of our 


thing. Be but resolute and orderly; 
and if, on the pretence of an over- 
whelming business, you have hurt or 
neglected the readings and the devotions 
of sacredness, summon up now such a 
principle of arrangement as. shall pro- 


vide for your daily converse with Hea- 


ven; and you will find, that under the 
prolific virtue of such a principle, you 
‘will subordinate to. your power all those 
complexities that are now so oppressive 
to you, and acquire a thorough mastery 


‘over that business of which you are now 
‘the jaded and the overdriven slaves. 


SERMON IX. 


The accommodating Spirit of Christian charity to the scruples of the Weak. 


- Wherefore, if meat make my brother to. offend, 


I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest 


I make my brother to. offend.”—1 Cor. viii. 13. 


We have already affirmed what the 
two principles are, on which it is that a 
human work is held to be of low or 
worthless estimation in Christianity. 
The first is- -when, offered as the price 
of our justification, it tends to bring down 
the honour of the divine law, by calling 
apon it to acknowledge, and to reward 
an imperfect obedience. The second is 
—when, destitute in itself of any moral 
or spiritual character, it tends. personally 


to degrade man by substituting points in 
the room of principles; and loading him 
with the observations of a paltry ceremo- 
nial, rather than infusing into his heart 
the essence of substantial virtue. It is 
‘worthy of being remarked however, 
that the first of these ingredients 1s 
greatly more obnoxious to the Gospel 
than the second—that it can tolerate no 
infringement on the ground of our meri- 
torious acceptance with God; and so, 


x] 


Paul resisted to the uttermost the practice 
of circumcision, when proposed by cer- 
tain teachers to the church of Galatia, as 
indispensable to salvation. Yet the same 
Paul could tolerate this very rite, nay 
even himself inflicted it upon Timothy, 
when the great doctrine of the righteous- 
ness that is through faith was not endan- 
gered by it. What he resisted when it 
_trenched on a fundamental principle, he 
could, were this principle kept inviolate, 
give way to, on the ground of expe- 
diency. ‘The very same thing which he 
opposed with all his might, when made 
to usurp the place of merit beside the 
righteousness of Christ—he was on cer- 
tain occasions content to let alone, when 
only made to usurp a place of simple oc- 
cupancy beside those other attributes of 
conduct or character, which make out 
the personal righteousness of man. 
When admitted on the first. footing, it 
thwarts the whole spirit and design, of 
Heaven’s jurisprudence, that will not stoop 
to the recognition of any human work, 
whatever, as being of any avail towards 
the acceptance of the alts, and will be 
challenged on no other plea than the one 
and unmixed righteousness which Christ 
hath brought in. Whereas when some 
little matter of outward or circumstantial 
observancy is admitted on the second foot- 
ing—it may at least be borne with as a 
harmless, though not esteemed as a very 
honourable visitor. Its presence, though 
it could well be dispensed with, may not 
exclude the presence of what is really 
good and graceful and desirable upon the 
character—just as the garb of Qua- 
kerism may be worn by the same indivi- 
dual, who wears along with it the piety 
and the patience and the uprightness and 
the primitive worth of Quakerism, with 
all the ornaments of its meek and quiet 
spirit, which, in the sight of God are of 
great price. One may smile, or perhaps 
oné may regret, that the stress of any re- 
ligious importance at all should be laid 
either on the hue or on the pattern of 
vestments—and think that this question 
of bodily apparel, like that of bodily ex- 
ercise, signifies but littl. But who 
would ever think of any serious contro- 
versy about so downright a bagatelle ; or 
who would not, if it softened antipathies 
or added to the amount of charity and 
good will between man and man, put on 


ACCOMMODATING sPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN 


CHARITY. 69 
those very habiliments which have given 
so pleasing and picturesque a variety tc 
this denomination of Christians? Did 
they assume to their peculiar dress-the 
merit or the power, which belongs to the 
doctrine of Christ’s righteousness, then 
Paul himself would have resented it as 
an aggression on the very foundation of 
our faith. But if it be only a way in 
which they think to adorn that doctrine, 
and a way that looks comely to their 
eyes, we believe that Paul would have 
let their taste and their peculiarity alone. 
He might have regarded it as hay or 
stubble lying on the foundation, along 
with the gold and silver and precious 
stones which had been deposited there, 
by men rich in the substantial graces of 
Christianity. But, instead of stooping 
to controvert the singularity, he, in all 
likelihood, would have postponed the 
question to that day, which shall try and 
declare every man’s work, and mani- 
fest its real worth, whatever it may 
be. The man himself, standing as he 
does on the foundation, shall be saved. 
Yet all that was insignificant in any of 
his practices shall be consumed away 
into oblivion; and only that, which 
has the attributes of enduring excellence 
shall stand—for only that is capable of 
being translated into the great and abid- 
ing society of Heaven, where nought 
other worth is recognised than what is 
lasting as the soul, and dignified as are the 
faculties of its moral and spiritual nature. 

So that the very same observance 
which, in one view, is of such perni- 
cious import, as, if admitted, would prove 
fatal to Christianity by sapping its foun- 
dations, might, in another view of it, be 
a mere innocent peculiarity, which could 
either be dispenssd with or tolerated ac- 
cording to circumstances. This will ex- 
plain all that might have else appeared 
incongruous or veering in the conduct of 
our Apostle. In his fourteenth chapter 
to the Romans, you will find the whole 
force and spirit of his understanding, put 
forth on the casuistry of points and scru- 
ples ; and we have often done homage to 
the rare and admirable sagacity where- 
with he has delivered himself in a ques- 
tion, which, of all others, is most apt to 
elude our efforts to unrival it; and that, 
just from the very unimportance of its 
materials, rendering it difficult to bring 


70 


the light of any decisive or commanding 
principle to bear upon it. He was most 
thoroughly aware of the frivolity, in re- 
gard to substance, of all those doubtful 
disputations that related to meats or days 
or ceremonies ; but never lifted the voice 
either of alarm or of authority on one 
side or other, save when an invasion was 
threatened on the ground of a sinner’s 
acceptance. After having repelled this 
mischief, he looked to these various nice- 
ties, very much as a man of full stature 
and exercised discernment would look to 
the peculiarities of grown-up children— 
in which, for the sake of peace and good 
humour, he might benevolently indulge 
them—or in which, for the still higher 
purpose of maintaining the ascendancy 
of his Christian kindness over their spt- 
rits, he most wisely and most willingly 
might share. 

There can be no mistaking the opinion 
of Paul, as to who was the more enlight- 
ened Christian—he who for himself sat 
loose to the punctualities in question, or 
he who was the slave of them. It is he 
who is strong that eateth all things: It 
is he who is weak that eateth herbs. 
Yet we never saw the qualities of mind 
and of principle in more beauteous com- 
bination ; nor, do we conceive how the 
vigour of masculine intellect can be more 
finely attempered with the mild and mer- 
ciful and condescending spirit of the 
Gospel—than when the apostle lets him- 
self down from that high region of liberty 
whither he had been borne on the pinions 
of a noble and emancipated spirit ; and 
when he who could roam with a free 
conscience over the wide domain of na- 
ture, and fearlessly partake of all its 
bounties, recollected the tenderness of a 

brother yet labouring in the distress and 

imprisonment of many difficulties, and 
protested that he would not eat flesh 
while the world standeth, lest he make 
his brother to offend. 

And there is a twofold mischief which 
the apostle avoids by this generous com- 
pliance with another’s principle, even 
though he himself regards it in the light 
of a weak peculiarity. -Should this bro- 
ther be quite decided and tenacious of 
the scruple, that he has raised in his own 
mind to the dignity of an essential obli- 
gation, then will another’s liberty be mat- 
ter of sorrow or concern to him, and the 


ACCOMMODATING SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY. 


[SERM ~ 


infliction of this painful feeling ought to 
be avoided, wherever it can be done with 
propriety—for, says Paul, if thy brother 
be grieved with thy meat, now walkest 
thou not charitably. Or, if he be not 
quite decided—if, diffident of himself, he 
be readily overborne by the authority of 
another—if, in deference to the judgment 
of the stronger Christian, he imitate him 
in certain freedoms of observation, about 
which, however, he has not altogether 
obtained satisfaction im the light of his 
own mind, then, there is still a struggle 
between the power of conscience and the 
power of example ; and should the latter 
prevail, the man is led to do'a thmg, not 
from the impulse of his clear convictions, 
but in opposition to his labouring doubts, 
and thus suffers himself to be hurried 
into a transgression against his own sense 
of moral rectitude. And thus it is that 
a weak conscience is wounded—for on 
seeing him who hath knowledge sit at a 
kind of meat which he deems unlawful, 
his conscience is emboldened to take the 
same liberty; and through the know- 
ledge of him who is enlightened, the 
weak brother perishes for whom Christ 
died. For though he has given way to the 
indulgence, it is not with his own faith, 
but in the mere following of another’s 
practice ; and he secretly condemneth 
himself in that which he alloweth; and 
whatever is not of faith is sin, whence he 
that doubteth is condemned if he eateth, 
because he eateth not of faith: And, so it 
is good, both on the principle of follow- 
ing after those things which make for 
peace, and those things wherewith one 
may edify another—it is good neither to 
eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor any 
thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, 
or is offended, or 1s made weak. It is 
this which may invest with a character 
of very high principle, what else would 
have seemed a weak and wretched scrn- 
pulosity. It is this which may stamp 
upon it the dignity of the second law 
that is like unto the first, and give the 
grace and the loveliness of charity even 
to the imbecilities of superstition. On 
the person of him who is its trembling 
votary, they may look silly enough; but 
they gather into an aspect of nobleness 
on the person of him, who, instead of 
frowning, as some would, the driveller 
away, walketh by his side; and, toler- 


ae 


t 
mj]: ACCOMMODATING SPIRIT 


ating the weakness for sake of the worth 
wherewith it is associated, can descend 
from the level of his own superiority, and 
stretch forth to this humble Christian the 
courtesy of his kind and respectful accom- 
modations. 

This suggests another principle in aid 
of all the others which have already been 
adduced on the side of Sabbath observa- 
tions. You know that there is a certain 
style of Sabbath keeping, which is re- 
garded by many as the best and most 
appropriate ; and that this style varies in 
different countries ; and that, in some of 
these countries there is a strong popular 
feeling of what the things are which are 
essential to the becoming sanctity of this 
day, and what the things are whereby 
this sanctity would be violated. Some 
could not without distress of conscience 
walk abroad upon the fields; and some 
could not reduce their double to a single 
attendance upon the house of prayer ; 
and some could not cast their eye over 
+he columns of a newspaper ; and some 
could not spend an hour upon a worldly 
visit, or so much as one moment upon 
worldly conversation. We have already, 
as we think, alleged enough of substan- 
tial argument for the solemn observation 
of this day, inasmuch as it is one of the 
unexpunged precepts of the decalogue— 
and inasmuch as every man of genuine 
Christian affections will love such a day, 
instead of feeling it a load upon his spi- 
rit—and inasmuch as a set and specific 
time for the exercises of piety insures a 
far larger amount of these exercises, than 
if they had been left at random to the 
spontaneous and desultory movement of 
one’s own inclinations. And, to supple- 
ment all these considerations, does the 
text supply us with one more, the force 
of which must be felt by every man who 
is at all endowed with the philanthropy 
of the Gospel—and just felt the stronger, 
if by the lustre of his unquestionable vir- 
tues he has earned a confidence among 
men, and has the homage awarded to 
him of being both an ornament and an 
example of Christianity. He may with- 


OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY. 71 


he is longing. It is even conceivable, 
that the withdrawment of himself from 
church into his own chamber, during 
the whole or the half of that time that is 
spent by others in its public services, 
might on some particular occasion be 
good for his spirit ; and that he, without 
one remonstrance from his own heart, 
could then fearlessly be absent from the 
house of God. Nay, there might even 
occur to him in the train of accidents, 
such unlooked for urgencies of call o1 
of intercourse, as would amount in his 
situation to a valid demand for worldly 
and secular converse—and that, too, on 
an hour that he else would have given 
to prayer and heavenly contemplation. 
Throughout all these deviations from 
the letter of many a rigid formalist, 
might this enlightened Christian be able 
to clear his way, with a spirit unhurt, be- 
cause with a conscience unviolated ; and 
had he only his own things to look at, 
then with love to the Sabbath in his 
heart, might he still take the liberty of a 
son of God with Sabbath in his practice. 
But this very love teaches him to look to 
the things of others also—teaches him, 
while at perfect freedom in his own con- 
science, to be the servant even of the 
weakest of his brethren. And should he 
know that his Sabbath walk ; or his Sab- 
bath converse with the world; or his 
Sabbath indulgence, though on rare oc- 
casions, in the news and the business and 
the secularities of the week ; or even his 
disappearance from church in any one of 
its services, though the time were conse- 
crated to the secret labourings of his 
heart with God—should he know that 
any one of these freedoms would, under 
the cover of his revered example, em- 
bolden another to trespass against the 
light of his own mind, and so wound 
that spirit which, not yet strengthened to 
the discernment of what was substantially 
cood and evil, is still over scrupulous and 
over sensitive about the externals of 
Christianity—Then in the spirit of our 
text would he feel, that what might else 
have been a mere insignificancy, was 


out offence to his own conscience go forth | now impregnated with the very essence 


on Sabbath among the beauties of nature. 
He may, endowed as he is with the 
glorious and generous law of liberty, to 
quell some anxiety that oppresses him, 
search for the article of news after which 


of gospel charity and gospel obligation— 
and, taking up the language of Paul, 
would he resolve to do none of those 
things while the world standeth, lest he 
should make his brother to offend. 


72 ACCOMMODATING SPIRIT 
You will thus perceive that the pre- 
cise style and etiquette of Sabbath obser- 
vation is, to a certain degree, a question 
of geography. The Christians of Eng- 
land, for example, have altogether a freer 
and more negligent Sabbath exterior 
than those of Scotland ; and this is per- 
fectly consistent with a substantial unity 
of spirit and of principle among them 
soth. A Scottish religionist might on 
visiting, or on shifting his residence to 
the south, maintain without prejudice, 
either to himself or others, all the rigidi- 
ties of his accustomed ‘practice. But the 
English religion’:s, on coming amongst 
‘us, could not without the hazard of dam- 
aging the principles of his new vicinity, 
retain the laxities of his. If the mind 
have long associated with a certain habit 
a feeling of deep and serious obligation, 
then the surrender ofthat habit were tan- 
tamount to a surrender of principle, and 
the conscience is vitiated, Higher ele- 
ments are at stake upon the issue of such 
a contest; and though the scruple may 
be a downright futility in itself, yet the 
whole religion of him who entertains it, 
may by its violation be shaken to an 
overthrow. It may be so implicated in 
his heart with all the feelings of sacred- 
ness, that the scruple cannot be torn 
away without the sacredness coming up 
along with it; and so the same authority 
which conjures a man out of his frivol- 
ous punctuality, might conjure him out 
of his faith altogether. The very same 
example which left untouched the Chris- 
tianity of one neighbourhood, might shed 
a deleterious blight over the Christianity 
of another. So, that while without det- 
riment to any passing observer, Wilber- 
force, from the lofty and exposed terrace 
of his habitation, might, in unison with 
every Sabbath feeling, inhale the fresh- 
ness of its summer evens, and verily 
catch a sweeter influence from Heaven 
apon his heart, when he looked abroad 
‘n the peaceful glories of the landscape 
before him—yet might the same exhibi- 
tion spread a pestilential virus, through 
the atmosphere of many of our northern 
parishes: And we leave you to estimaté 
‘or yourselves what the cast of that deli- 
eacy is, which would lead this most ten- 
der yet most liberal of Christians, to 
forego the much loved liberty in which 
his own spirit could most fearlessly have 


a 


OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY. [SERM. 
expatiated—and tell us, whether it were 
narrow or it were noble, if, in his tour of 
recreation through our romantic territo- 
ry, he, forthe sake of the people’s holi- 
ness, dearer to his heart than even the 
fond enthusiasm wherewith the face of 
nature is surveyed by him, he did on 
every seventh day suspend the enjoyment 
of her lakes and her mountains, and 
turn his Sabbath inn into a hermitage, | 
rather than make the meanest of her peas- 
antry to offend. 

It is in this spirit that you ought to act. 
Beside all the previous considerations on 
behalf of Sabbath, you must compute the 
force of your example upon others—and 
each should contribute the decorum of 
his own grave and regular observations, 
even though at the expense of self-denial 
to his own tastes, that he may help with- 
in the sphere of his influence to arrest 
the declining piety of ourage. It is wo- 
ful to think at this period of benevolent 
forthgoing, on the part of the higher 
classes among the habitations of the poor 
—how listless after all they are of the 
Christianity of our city multitudes—and 
what woful havock they do make, by 
their conspicuous departure from the 
gravity of the olden times, on the best 
and dearest principles of our land. And 
the mischief is not confined to its opera- 
tion upon the brethren, or upon those 
who are already Christians, in causing 
them to offend, and so speeding them 
downward along the career of degenera- 
cy. For this growing obliteration of 
Sabbath, and of all those solemn and im- 
pressive vestiges which wont to charac- 
terise it, tell with malignant effect, in 
perpetuating and confirming the heathen- 
ism of our outcast population. It were 
well, for the sake of those in whom the 
power of reflection is so nearly extinct, 
as to leave almost nothing but the exter- 
nal senses, by which to find a convey- 
ance for serious or pathetic emotion into 
their hearts—it were. well for them that 
Sabbath should be uphelden in all its 
venerable distinctions, and should stand 
visibly out with the aspect of religious- 
ness on its very forehead. It is not we 
think in the spirit of a blind fanaticism, 
but rather in the spirit of a philosophy 
which can look into the secret mechan- 
ism both of our moral and sentient nature, 


that the opening on the Sabbath. whether 


x] 


of public rooms or of public gardens, 
should be resisted as a measure of deadly 
import to the religion of the community 
at large; and on the same principle 
would we advocate that Sabbath police, 
which, without oppression and without 
violence, puts to flight those many dese- 
erations by which the hallowed aspect of 
this day has been overborne. But our 

more immediate business is with you ; 
and our present aim is, to lay the respon- 
sibility of the principle that we have now 
urged upon your consciences. Look not 


AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 


73 


‘merely to your own things but to the 
things of others also; and fail not to keep 
up both a congregational regularity in 
the eye of your fellow-worshippers, and 
a household regularity in the eye of your 
family. These are sensible memorials 
which serve both to grace and to signal- 
ise this day of sacredness ; and so multi- 
ply the influences, in favour of that great 
Christian institution, a reverence for 
which seems to be identified with a rever- 





ence for Christianity itself. 


SERMON X. 


On the Amusements and 


Companies of the World. 


* 3e ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness 


with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness ? 
Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel ? 


And what concord hath 
And what agreement 


hath the temple of God with idols ? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, 
I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” — 


2 Cor. vi. 14—16. 


_ Peruaps on no occasion does the Apos- 
ile evince a more delicate and discerning 
eye, than when pronouncing on the 
question of meet and allowable inter- 
course between his recent converts and 
those idolaters, who composed the great 
mass of the society around them, and 
with whom they were still connected by 
the ties both of neighbourhood and rela- 
tionship. You see at once, how, strong 
in the important principles of the ques- 
tion, he could stand his own individual 
ground against all the scrupulosities of a 
weak and sensitive conscience. He for 
himself could eat the meat that had been 
offered to an idol—he could even have 
eaten it in the very temple of idolatry, 
and perhaps at the same table too with its 
deluded worshippers. What another 
Christian would have shuddered at as an 
abomination, he could fearlessly have 
done ; and it was not any conscientious 
tenderness about the matter in itself, but 
a charitable tenderness for the points and 
perplexities of the feeble-minded among 
the brethren, which led him to abstain 
from it. The act he regarded as no- 
thing, or truly as much too insignificant 
for any strenuous or imperative deliver- 
ance from him upon its own account. 

. 10 


But he took into account the effect of it, 
in the way of exhibition to other disci- 
ples ; and how it might be matter of dis- 
tress and difficulty to their hearts; and 
how it might embolden them to traxs- 
gress against the light of their own cot. 
science, and so be matter of defilement 
as well as of distress; and how it might 
be the means of bringing them more fre- 
quently into contact and exposure, with 
people who had no kindred quality of 
Spirit or sentiment with themselves ; and 
under the force of these considerations, 
does this free and firm and most intelli- 
gent casuist come forth with the expres- 
sion of a resolve, the principle and appli- 
cation of which we have already tried to 
elucidate—“ Wherefore, if meat make 
my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh 
while the world standeth, lest it make 
my brother to offend.” 

In the text that has now been submit- 
ted to you, the apostle looks to the ap- 
proximation in question between his dis- 
ciples and idolaters under another aspect. 
Viewed as a mere bodily or external act, 
the eating with them of the same food, 
or sitting witn them at the same table, 
he seems to regard as a point of indiffer- 
ency,and to number with the all things 


74 


which are lawful. But viewed not as 
the juxtaposition of different persons, but 
as the juxtaposition of different minds or 
of different principles, he looks to the 
spiritual character and contemplates the 
spiritual result that is likely to come out 
of such a companionship, and seems at 
once to number it among the things 
which are not expedient. He seems to 
regard it asa most unequal and unseemly 
assortment of people, who are wholly 
unsuitable and heterogeneous the one to 
the other. Their mere presence together 
in the same apartment, and their mere 
sitting together at the same board, and 
their partaking together of the same 
dishes and the same viands—these deeds 
and these circumstances of materialism, 
would argue in the religion of Christ, 
the grossness and the littleness of mate- 
rialism, did it lay down its specifications 
and its categories for things of such frivo- 
lous observation. But when we think 
of the kind of moral atmosphere that is 
sure to gather and be formed around 
every assembled company; and how 
each individual spirit that is there, con- 
tributes a something of its own character 
by which to tmge and to peculiarise it; 
and that person cannot be approximated 
to person, without mind reciprocating on 
mind ; and that there be manifold ave- 
nues of transition from one heart to ano- 
ther, whether by the utterance of direct 
sentiment, or by the natural signs of the 
eye and of the voice, or what perhaps is 
most insiduous of all, by a certain tact of 
sympathy with the general pulse of those 
who are near us and about us, in virtue 
of which the tone and habit of a party 
have a certain power of diffusiveness that 
tends at least to a community of feeling 
among all the members of it—when we 
think that from these causes, there is a 
hazard that sacredness, by moving too 
near to the temperament of the region 
which is opposite, may sustain a blight 
from the withering influences of the con- 
tiguous secularity—then must we see 
that the topic on hand, instead of apper- 
taining to the casuistry of mere circum- 
stantials, holds by an immediate tie on 
the clear and intelligent morality of prin- 
ciple: And, we must again award to our 
apostle, the homage of a high and pow- 
erful illamination—when, saying at.one 
time that an idol is nothing and the meat 


AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 


[SERM, 


offered to an idol is nothing; he could 
say at another, that it was both hurtful 
and unseemly for Christians to associate 
with idolaters—between whom, in all the 
essential characteristics of the inner man, 
there was no fellowship and no agree- 
ment and no communion, 

There seem to be two capital reasons 
why the men of a Christian spirit should 
not by choice, and as if prompted thereto | 
by a spontaneous impulse of their own, 
associate with those of a worldly or 
idolatrous spirit. The first is, that there 
is really no congeniality between the two 
spirits. As there is the want of a com- 
mon taste, so there is the want of common 
topics. The children of this world nau- 
seate the favourite themes of the children 
of light; and the children.of light hold 
to be insipid at least the favourite themes 
of the children of this world. Fora man 
then to delight in the air and conver- 
sation of an irreligious party, bears on it 
the evidence of his own irreligion. It 
proves him to be of a kindred quality, 
with those who have nothing in them 
that is akin to sacredness: And the very 
facility wherewith his spirit can amalga- 
mate with theirs—the very comfort and 
pleasure wherewith he can breathe in an 
atmosphere altogether tainted with un- 
godliness—the very circumstance of him 
not feeling out of his element, though in 
an element in which, for hours together, 
there has not been one sentiment ex- 
changed that bears on the things of faith 
or of eternity—This ought to alarm him 
for his own state, as carrying in it the 
indication of its being a state im which 
nature still maintains great force, if it do 
not maintain the entire predominancy : 
And, if it be the apostolical symptom 
of having passed from death unto life, 
that we love the brethren, or love the 
society of Christian disciples—then may 
the love of another society, at utter anti- — 
podes with the former, administer the 
suspicion of a still unregenerated heart, 
of a still unsubdued worldliness. 

But there is still another reason, dis- 
tinct from the former, why there ought to 
be no gratuitous fellowship between the 
pious and the ungodly. The former 
reason is, that for a man to consort, and 
by choice, with the ungodly, argues that 
there is in him still a strong leaven 
or remainder of ungodliness. ‘The othex 


x. 


reason is, that so to consort with the 
ungodly not only proves the existence of 
a kindred leaven in our spirit, but tends 
to ferment it—not only argues the un- 
godliness which yet is in the constitution, 
but tends to promote and to strengthen it 
the more. ‘The one reason why it is 
desirable that a man in quest of spiritual 
health should shun an intercourse with 
corruption, is, that his very delight in 
that intercourse is in itself a most infalli- 
ble symptom of spiritual disease; and the 
other reason is, that it only indicates the 
disease, but serves to aggravate and to 
confirm it. And who can doubt of the 
blight and the barrenness that are 
brought upon the spirit by its converse 
with the world? Who, that ever looked 
on human life with an observant eye, can 
question the might and efficacy of that 
assimilating power, which every circle 
of society has on the individuals who 
mingle with it? Such, even among 
those who have been long under a pro- 
cess of sanctification—such is the down- 
ward tendency of the heart, that it is 
indeed a work of strenuousness to uphold 
its spiritual frame for a single hour ; and 
the hazard is, that, on being laid open to 
the full tide of that worldly influence 
which descends upon it from an alienated 
company, the whole unction of its sacred- 
ness will take flight and be dissipated. 
It is altogether with the grain and ten- 
dency of our old nature, to fall in with 
the prevalent tone of nature’s unrenewed 
children ; and this old nature, though 
subordinated by grace, is not extin- 
guished ; and so, there is ever present in 
us, a principle of ready coalescence with 
the taste and spirit and affections of men 
who have not God in all their thoughts ; 
and thus to bring this earthly ingredient 
of our constitution into voluntary contact 
with such men, is tantamount, in fact, to a 
voluntary exile or departure, on our part, 
from the living God. It is as if, by our 
own proper choice, we left the tabernacle 
of God, that we might dwell for a season 
in the tents of iniquity; and as this, 
by our first consideration, bespeaks where 
the liking of the heart lies, and is there- 
fore to be deplored—so, by our second, it 
is equally to be deplored, as carrying in 
it a most pernicious reflex influence upon 
the heart tending most assuredly to 


AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES °F THE WORLD. 
/ 








75 


deteriorate the gracious principle that 
is therein, if not to destroy it. 

Both the one and the other of these 
considerations are directly applicable 
touchstones by which to try, we will not 
say the lawfulness, but at least the expe- 
diency, both of the theatre and of all pub- 
lic entertainments. Think of the degree 
of congeniality which there is between 
the temperament of sacredness, and the 
temperament of any of those assemblages 
which are now referred to. Compute, 
though it be only in a general way, the 
distance and dissimilarity that do actually 
obtain between the prevalent spirit of this 
world’s amusements and the spirit of 
godliness. Bethink yourselves of any 
‘such tests as may help to clear and ascer- 
tain this matter; and perhaps one of the 
most effectual is, to recollect that one 
individual of all your acquaintanceship, 
to whom you would most readily award, 
and that in the most pure and holy and 
reverend sense of the term, the character 
of a saint; and on whose aspect, there 
stands out to your eye the most decided 
and unequivocal expression of saintliness. 
Then make an effort, and conceive of 
this very personage—either that, as one 
of the most delighted spectators, he drinks 
in the whole fascination of a scenic pei- 
formance on the stage, and shares in the 
loudest peals of the merriment that is 
awakened by it; or that, with all the 
ecstatic glee of the most youthful in 
attendance, he plays off his agility and 
elegance in the eddying circles of an 
assembly. We do not ask you of any 
unseemliness in all this arismg out of 
age; but we ask, if there be not palpable, 
even to yourselves, a most violent un- 
seemliness arising out of the profession 
and the character? Do you not feel im- 
mediately awake to the utter discordancy 
that there is between the imagined exer- 
cises of the man in secret, and the public 
exhibition that he now makes of himself ? 

On your own impressions of human 
nature do you hold it possible, that a re- 
lish so decisive for the actings which are 
carried on in the temples of fashion, can 
dwell in the same bosom with a relish 
equally determined for the actings which 
are carried on in a temple of piety ? 
Would you believe it of the man, thus 
the gayest of the gay, that he had spent 


76 


his morning hour in rapt and hallowed 
converse with Heaven; or do you ever 
think, that he who bears in his heart a 
cherished love for theatric declamation 
and song, carries in it also love for the 
psalmody of Christian worshippers? Is 
it not then your feeling, that, by the 
transition he has made, from the cham- 
ber of prayer to the concourse of fash- 
ionable gaiety, his character has, even in 
your eyes, sustained a grievous desecra- 
tion? And what is this to say, but that 
you hold the atmosphere of the one place 
to be of diverse quality from the atmos- 
phere of the other 2?—that, yourselves 
being judges, there is a real and substan- 
tial opposition between the temperament 
of piety and the temperament of a dis- 
sipation, which, however refined, is at 
least utterly devoid of the breath and the 
being of godliness; that there is a cer- 
tain want of assortment between the two 
things, in virtue which you cannot ima- 
gine a great delight in the one, without 
some distaste or aversion for the other ; 
aud that, therefore, and of necessary 
consequence, the abandonment of oneself 
to the rounds of fashionable life, while it 
may imply no infraction in the outward 
act of single specific requirement to be 
found in sacred writ, may yet most de- 
cisively imply an utter alienation of the 
heart from all sacredness. , 

Thus much, then, for the act of de- 
lighted attendance on public entertain- 
ments, viewed as the symptom of a state 
of spiritual disease ; and then, as to the 
second point of view in which it may be 
regarded, that is, as a course by which 
the disease may gather strength and be 
aggravated—this also may safely be re- 
ferred, we think, to your feelings and 
your own experience. We have already 
presumed on the fact of your voluntary 
presence in the theatre or ball-room, and 
eager participation in their amusements, 
‘as being itself an indication, that on the 
morning of that day, you had not reached 
in your closet to the heights of saintly or 
seraphic communion with the God of 
holiness. And the question remains, 
whether the glee and the giddiness and 
and the splendour that you have wit- 
nessed and have shared, will send you 
back again to your closets in the even- 
ing, in better trim, if we may be allowed 
the expression, for another and more 


AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 


[SERM. 


successful attempt on Heaven’s sanctuary 
than before? The simple matter to be 
determined is, will the dance, and the 
music, and the merriment, and the repre- 
sentation, and the whole tumult of that 
vanity through which you have passed, 
and in full sympathy too, it is to be pre- 
sumed, with the joyous multitude around 
you—will these attune the consent of the 
spirit to the feelings and the exercises 
of sacredness? Would you say of any 
one place of ‘fashionable gaiety, that if 
makes a good antichamber of preparation 
for that house of solemn interview, in 
which converse is held, either with the still 
small voice that is within, or with that 
God above who bids you sanctify Him 
at all times in your heart, and do all 
things to His glory. ‘These are experi- 
mental questions; and perhaps the me- 
mory of some who are here present 
may serve for the solution of them. 
And if their recollection be, that the al- 
most unfailing result of an evening of 
gaiety, was to be bustled and jaded out 
of all their spirituality—that the whole 
unction of religiousness had fled ; and, 
if prayers were uttered at all, they were 
lifted up im the mockery of meagre and 
downright heartlessness—that, in truth, 
there was a general riot or restlessness 
of their internal feelings, which nought 
could compose but sleep, and sleep held 
under the unacknowledged eye of Him 
who never slumbers, and still kept His 
wakeful guardianship over the uncon- 
scious moments of that creature, who, 
for a season had chosen to disregard Him 
—Oh, is it needful for us to suspend you 
any longer on the issues of a deep and 
doubtful casuistry—or will we not be 
helped forward by the responding of 
your own bosoms, when we say, that 
this cannot be the habit of one who 
knows himself to be a stranger and a 
pilgrim on the earth—cannot be the 
habit of one who has tasked himself to 
the work of nursing up his spirit for 
eternity ? 

We have all along assumed these 
places of public and fashionable resort, 
to be innocent of any specific or tangible 
offence against the proprieties of human 
life, or the delicacies of human sentiment ; 
and, on this assumption, the most favour- 
able for them, have we nevertheless at- 
tempted to demonstrate, how utterly at 


x.) 


-antipodes they are with the soul and ha- 
bit of one, who is singly aspiring after 
immortality. But should this assumption 
not be true—should it be found that in 
these haunts of assembled elegance, a 
regardless impiety is sometimes connived 
at, and sometimes a sensitive and high- 
toned delicacy is laughed out of coun- 
tenance—should there, in the midst of all 
that disguise and decorum which signal- 
ises the present above the former genera- 
tion,:should there be the hazard of so 
much as one sportive effusion by which 
the most pure or the most pious ear could 
possibly be offended—Then the question 
instantly emerges out of all its difficul- 
ies ; and the Christian, instead of hay- 
ing to grope his way through the am- 
biguities of a yet unsettled controversy, 
will recoil from the poisoned insidious- 
ness, with the promptitude of as quick 
an alarm, as he would from the most di- 
rect and declared abomination. 

Now, what is true of this world’s 
amusements is also true of this world’s 
companies. If there be risk, either with 
the one or the other, of being exposed to 
the language of profaneness or the lan- 
guage of impurity, this were reason en- 
ough, without any lengthened or recon- 
dite argumentation, why a Christian 
should maintain himself at the most 
scrupulous and determined distance from 
them both. But it so happens, that like 
as the theatre, for example, has been re- 
fined out of much of its original coarse- 
ness, so a similar process of refinement 
has taken undoubted effect on the con- 
versation of private society. And when 
the public representation on the one 
hand, and the household party on the 
other, have thus been delivered of every 
specific transgression—where is_ the 
harm, and where is the hazard, it may 
be asked, of our most faithful and re- 
peated attendance on them? It is when 
every thing in the shape of distinct or 
definite impropriety is cleared away, that 
many feel as if the cause of liberty, both 
as to fashion’s entertainments and fash- 
fon’s visits, were restored to an impreg- 
nable standiig-place. It is thought, 
that when the enemies of any indulg- 
ence have nothing specific to allege 
against it, they, on that account have no- 
thing substantial to allege against it; 
that in the lack of solid materials they 


AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 


ce ete icone stl esteem aechaesnetitianan 


77 


have recourse on imaginative phantoms ; 
and with their plea attenuated to airy 
nothing, all which remains to them is. 
the fierceness of an irrational and intem- 
perate bigotry, or a certain subtlety of 
argument that is far too ethereal for the 
grasp of an ordinary understanding. 
Now, you will recollect, that on the 
question of public entertammenis, our 
reasoning, in the main amount of it, was 
directed, not against any specific viola- 
tions of propriety wherewith they were 
chargeable—but against them on account 
of their spiritual character and spiritual 
tendency. We affirmed, that, in virtue 
of that change which Christianity in- 
duced upon its converts, the once passion- 
ate votary of fashion would cease to be 
any longer enamoured of its dissipations 
and its gaieties; and that, simply from 
the willing impulse of his new taste, 
these old things would go into desuetude 
and then pass away. And then might 
this world’s amusements be abandoned 
without any imperative deliverance at 
all upon the subject of them—not given 
up, because of any precept of Christian 
ity that required the specific action; and 
yet at the same time given up, because 
of the power of Christianity over the af- 
fections. And one reason why it is very 
undesirable to behold a professing disci- 
ple as intent as before in pursuit of gaiety, 
is, that it is the symptom not only of no 
change in his habits ; but much there is 
room to fear it as the symptom of there 
yet being no change in his heart. And 
another reason of its being undesirable, 
is that, besides a taste for the amusements 
of the world being the symptom or the 
indication of a worldly spirit—the indul- 
gence of this taste seems to fix and to 
strengthen this worldliness the more. 
We are not conscious of any thing mys- 
tic or unintelligible in all this. There 
may be a difficulty in replying to the in- 
terrogation— What is the crime of mu- 
sic? Yet would you feel yourself enti- 
tled to rebuke the scholar whose love for 
music dispossessed his love of study, 
and whose gratification of this appetite 
dissipated his mind away from all the 
preparations that were indispensable to 
his professional excellence. And in like 
manner it may be difficult to state what 
that specific thing is in which the crimi- 
nality of the theatre or the ball-room lies 


\ 


78 


—and more particularly, if refined out 
of all that is literally or outwardly ex- 
ceptionable. And yet without any re- 
mote or scholastic process of ratiocina- 
tion—may it be clearly made out, that 
these are among the earthly things, the 
liking of which is-at diametric variance 
with the habit of him who has his con- 
versation in heaven-—that, without any 
departure from the wisdom which is so- 
berly and strictly experimental, they may 
be denounced as a nuisance and an ob- 
stacle in the path of spiritual education 
—reprobated, not dogmatically but repro- 
bated intelligently, by him who with an 
eye fresh from the lights of observation, 
and well exercised in the phases and 
phenomena of human character, can 
pronounce on the whole atmosphere of 
fashion as being pervaded with the breath 
of a diverse spirit from the atmosphere 
of godliness; and lift up a true warning 
when he says, that the more you prose- 
cute of this world’s gaieties, the more 
you darken the hopes and enfeeble the 
preparations of eternity. 

And, as it is with this world’s amuse- 
ments, so it may be with this world’s 
companies. It may not be possible to 
single out that one enactment of the sta- 
tute-book which, by any specific act, or 
by any specific expression has been tram- 
pled upon. There may be none of the 
excesses of intemperance. There may 
be none of the execrations of profanity. 
There may be none of the sneers of in- 
fidelity. There may be none of that 
foolish talking, which to use the lan- 
guage of the apostle, is not seemly or 
convenient. It is true, that neither the 
doctrine, nor the devotional spirit of 
Christianity, may have contributed one 
ingredient throughout the whole of the 
evening’s conversation. Yet all may 
have been pure, and dignified and intel- 
lectual—or if not a very enlightened so- 
ciety, all at least may have been affection- 
ate and kind, and free from any thing 
more obstreperous or jovial than what a 
simple light-heartedness would inspire. 
And, then, the gravelling question is put 
—where is the mighty and mysterious 
harm of all this? By what magic of so- 
phistry, will you fasten on such a fami- 
liar and oft-acted companionship, the atro- 
cious characters of carnal and ungodly 


AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 





[SERM. 


ciples on which so bland and amiable 
and domestic a looking party are to be 
stigmatized as a party of unregenerates ? 
And are we to be shocked with an affir- 
mation, In every way so transcendentl 
revolting—as that in a scene often ea 
ised at our own tables; and enlivened 
by the humour and _ hilarity of our own 
choicest acquaintances ; and still more 
endeared by the smile and the sparkle, 
and the engaging logacity of owr own 
children—there is nought but the tainted 
atmosphere of corruption; and that we 
must shun the infection of such a circle, 
as we would that of so many reprobates 
or unbelievers who are ripening for the 
society of the damned. | 

The intelligent Christian will not fail 
to recognise in all his vehemence, the 
very repugnance that is felt im the heart 
of a worldly yet respectable man, when 
the minister tries to pursue him with the 
demonstration of his utter sinfulness, It 
is a thing not felt and not understood, by 
the conscience that has not been spiritu- 
ally awakened, to the rightful ascendancy 
of Heaven’s laws over all the desires of 
the heart, and all those affections which 
it charges with revolt and idolatry, 
simply because the things of sense have 
seduced them from God. 

There may not be one member of an 
assembled company, who has not much 
that should endear him to our most kind 
and complacent regards—whether as the 
honourable citizen ; or as the benignant 
matron of the party; or as the joyous 
and free-hearted companion, whose very 
presence lights up the expectation of 
pleasure in every countenance; or as 
the son, who though now verging upon 
manhood, has never yet cost his parents, 
or his sisters, a sigh, but who all of them 
rejoice in the opening anticipations both 
of his prosperity and his worth; or 
finally, and to complete our sketch of 
this happy and harmonious assemblage, 
may we advert to those lovely infants, 
who are permitted for a season to shed a 
beauteous halo of innocence and delight 
over the scene of enjoyment. And again, 
it may be asked, is it the mandate of 
stern and unrelenting theology that all 
this shall be broken up; or at least, that 
it shall be shrunk from by its own yo- 
taries, as if charged with the noxious 


and anti-christian 2 What are the prin-| elements of a moral or a spiritual pesti 


x.] 


lence ? Is it for Christianity to look with 
the hard eye of a Gorgon on this living 
scene—peopled as it is with the best 
-family affections, and with all those feel- 
ings which flow in grateful circulation 
around a gay and generous companion- 
ship? Or can it at all be endured that 
the grace and embellishment and _heart- 
felt charms of society shall thus be scared 
away ; and that too, at the bidding of a 
principle the reason and authority of 
which we cannot comprehend ? 

You will thus perceive, that by meet- 
Ing our antagonist in all his plausibility, 
and in all his force, we have landed our- 
selves in what some may regard as a 
task of no common difficulty—which is, 
to steer our way between the truth of 
what Christianity affirms regarding our 
nature, and the tenderness which Chris- 
tianity feels towards every individual 
who wears it ; or to prove of orthodoxy, 
that it is not only sound, but amiable. 
You will further perceive, that we can- 
not advance a step upon this subject, 
without taking the essential principles 
of the gospel along with us. And it 
ought to reconcile the hearer to a greater 
length of disquisition on the one topic of 
conformity to the world than might else 
have been tolerated, that thereby the fun- 
damental doctrines of our faith might 
obtain a new enforcement, when thus 
carried out to a new and generally in- 
teresting application. Think not, then, 
that we are lavishing an enormous amount 
of time and labour barely on one of the 
subordinate moralities of the New Testa- 
ment—for, in truth, there can be no sub- 
stantial or satisfactory management of 
the question, without settling it deeply 
upon an evangelical basis, and repeatedly 
appealing therefrom to the highest and 
most peculiar principles of the evangeli- 
cal system. 

It must not be disguised then, that, 
with all the attractive qualities which 
each member of the company referred to 
may personally realise—it is quite a 
possible thing that there be not one trait 
or tincture of godliness on the character 
of any one of them. They may all be 
living without God in the std - and 
deriving though they do all the moral 
and all the physical gracefulness which 
belong to them from the hand of the great 
human architect, He may be utterly for- 


AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 


79 


gotten ; and by a tacit but faithful com- 
pact during the: whole process of tiis 
conviviality, all thought and all talk of 
the ever present Deity may for the season 
be abandoned. It is said in one of the 
old prophets, that they who feared the 
Lord spake often one to another ; and 
the Lord hearkened and heard it; and 
a book of remembrance was written be- 
fore Him for them that feared the Lord, 
and that thought upon His name. Now, 
how we ask, would the topics of any of 
our every-day companies appear in the 
book of Heaven’s remembrance? What 
sort of document would you frame, by 
taking a full and a faithful record of its 
conversation? It may not be licentious, 
it may not be profane, it may not be en- 
livened by so much as one touch of scan- 
dal; and yet withal be just as remote as 
possible from sacredness. If it be from 
the abundance of the beart that the mouth 
speaketh, and out of the whole mass of 
the utterance that has been poured forth, 
not one sentence was heard that bore 
upon religion or eternity—what can we 
infer but that religion or eternity has not 
been in all their thoughts? God, by 
common consent, has been shut out from 
the party altogether, and has been as 
little regarded, and as little recognised, 
as He would have been in a region of 
atheism. 

So, you will observe, that it is just 
with our fashionable parties, as it is with 
our fashionable amusements. Both have 
been much purified of late years from all 
that is directly revolting or abominable. 
Both may be animated with that play of 
heart and of humour, which is quite ac- 
cordant with the kindliness of nature. 
All the feeling, and all the fancy which 
circulate there, may be in perfect unison 
with those best sympathies, which go to 
cement and to sweeten the intercourse 
of human society. And yet, the whole 
breath of this fair society on earth may 
be utterly distinct from the breath of the 
society in Heaven. In the very propor- 
tion of its freedom from that which would 
alarm or repel a sensitive delicacy, may 
it in truth be the more pregnant with 
danger to the souls of the unwary. It 
may only engage them the more to the 
things that are beneath, and alienate them 
the more from the things that are above. 
And thus it is a very possible thing, that 


80 


in simply prosecuting your round of 
invitations among this world’s amiable 
friends and hospitable families, you may 
be cradling the soul into utter insensi- 
bility against the portentous realities of 
another world—a spiritual lethargy may 
grow and gather every year till it settle 
down into the irrevocable sleep of death 
—and, without one specific transgression 
that can be alleged of the companies 
_among which you move, still may you 
be inhaling in the midst of them an at- 
mosphere that makes you as oblivious 
of judgment, and as oblivious of eternity, 
as if you had drunk of the waters of for- 
getfulness. It may not be the air of vul- 
gar proflicacy, or abandoned licentious- 
ness, but it may be still the air of irreli- 
gion; and you, assimilating more and 
more to the temperament by which you 
are surrounded, in confirmed irreligion 
may expire. 

This is the leading principle that is 
applicable to the question of indiscrimi- 


AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 


5 [SERM. 


world’s companies—as we have not dis- 
guised-or extenuated the former, as little 
to shrink from giving a picture of the 
latter equally aggravated and equally 
alarming. Nay, we are not sure but that 
it has greater power than the other to 
confirm the spiritual lethargy, and to 
steal away the heart into a, pleasing ob- 
livion of God and godliness. ‘T’he show, 
and the festival, and the great public en- 
tertainment may more violently discom- 
pose the spirit out of its religiousness for 
the time; and, acting by successive as- 
saults upon the frame of our personal 
Christianity, may at length demolish it 
altogether. But we can conceive the 
disciple to be more upon his guard against 
a danger so direct, and so palpable—and 
thus better able to withstand the shock of 
a hostility, that renews its attacks upon 
him at given periods, and does so with 
the full-blown note and circumstance of 
preparation. We can concéive of him, 
that, even though present among the 


nate converse with the society of this |tumults and the gaieties of the public en- 


world. The love of it is opposite to the 
love of God; and the indulgence of the 
love of it serves to confirm and strength- 
en our enmity to sacredness the more.— 
In as far as it goes to indicate the disease 
of a worldly spirit, it is to be regretted — 
In as far as it goes to cherish or to ag- 
gravate that disease, it should be forth- 
with relinquished by all who have at 
heart their preparation for the upper 
sanctuary. We do not say that even the 
most wakeful feeling of its danger, will 
lead in fact to a total abstinence from gen- 
eral company ; or even that it ought to 
doso. But sure we are that it will very 
much abridge the intercourse ; and that 
in every specific instance when it is 
thought right or allowable to venture 
upon it, it will lead to the most vigilant 
guardianship—to the jealousy of a spirit 
that forewarns and forearms itself against 
the hazards of the coming party—to the 
strictest maintenance of Christian humili- 
ty and holiness and love, during the cur- 
rency of its dissipations and its blandish- 
ments—and finally, to a solemn reckon- 
ing upon its effects and its influences, 
after that the season of its exposures has 
gone by. 

We think it right in stating our com- 
parison between the influence of this 
world’s amusements, and that of this 


tertainment, he may come off more un- 
hurt, than from the polite and placid cir- 
cle of a very kind yet wholly unchristian 
society—when mind comes vastly nearer 
to mind ; and so the assimilating power 
of man upon his fellows, acts with tenfold 
advantage and effect ; and is besides in- 
conceivably heightened by that rapid 
interchange of thoughts and feelings, 
which takes place in conversation. And 
complaisance sits in smiling supremacy 
there. And cheerfulness which the in- 
troduction of an ungenial topic would at 
once put to flight, has her post of long 
and well established occupancy there.— 
And who can withstand the pleasing 
illusions of all the glow, and of all the 


graciousness, which are current there ? 


And thus it is, that the very kindliness 
of nature may beguile the spirit into a 
sweet forgetfulness of the ever present 
Deity. All sense of religion is charmed 
away from the heart, soothed and satisfi- 
ed as it is amid the sweets of youth or 
generous companionship: And if it be a 
likely thing that the occasional atmos- 
phere of a playhouse, pealing aloud with 
the thunders of merriment and applause, 
shall storm the human bosom for a sea- 
son out of all its piety—then know it to 
be a still more likely thing of the daily 
atmosphere of many a parlour, that, 


ae 


lighted up as it is with smiles and per- 
fumed with the incense of mutual rever- 
ence and regard, it may stifle into irre- 
coverable death that piety which the 
other might only at intervals scare away. 

And what gives additional soreness as 
well as subtlety to this oft recurring mis- 
chief, is, that it may not only injure the 
Christian, but may cause him to reflect 
the injury back again on those who are 
arsand him. Let him have but the 
name and the authority of religiousness 
—let it be held enough by the many that 
they reach the standard of his observa- 
tions—let his example be quoted as the 
measure of a safe and sufficient imitation; 
and then let them witness with what 
kindred delight, he can give himself up, 
and that for hours together, to a scene of 
unminegled earthliness. Let him there 
exhibit a full and approving sympathy 
with the joy of creatures who have no 
joy in God, and share in all the busy in- 
terest they feel, about topics more paltry 
and ephemeral still, than is the passing 
world they tread upon. Let it be seen 
how willingly he can disport himself 
among fellow men, who, if his Christian- 
ity be true, are on the brink of a fearful 
lake, from whose devouring billows there 
is no other way of escape, than by the 
living faith and thorough regeneration 
of the gospel. And after all this, will it 
be said that no damage is sustained by 
human souls, from this man’s easy con- 
nivance at the ungodliness of the world ; 
or from his complacent toleration of those 
parties by whom a sacred or scriptural 
utterance would be felt as a most un- 
seemly and most unwarranted intrusion, 
-and so put a sudden arrest on all that 
hilarity which they had met to indulge 
in? ‘Think you not that the cruel deli- 
cacy of this man’s silence about the cares 
and concerns of eternity; and the coun- 
tenance that he sheds by his presence on 
those meetings of conviviality, from 
which by tacit but unviolated compact 
religion is alienated ; and the free aban- 
donment of himself to the trifles, or at 
Jeast to the temporalities which form the 
al] wherein the carnal and the unbeliev- 
er can expatiate—thmk you not that 
these will serve to reduce still farther in 
the eyes of men the high topics of immor- 
tality ?—and will they not: foster the de- 


AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 


lusions of that practical infidelity which | 


11 


81 


so abounds among us ?—and do they not 
tend to satisfy that heart, which, did it 
feel as it ought, would be all awake and 
in disquietude about its state of condem- 
nation?—and do they not lend a most 
pernicious sanction to the whole habit 
and history of creatures, who have taken 
up with the world as their resting-place ; 
and, engrossed with the bustle of its com- 
panies and its joys, never cast one look of 
earnestness to the eternity that is beyond 
it? ! 
And now is it time for the question— 
that if an unbridled indulgence in this 
world’s companies be to the full as dele- 
terious as an unbridled indulgence in this 
world’s amusements—how comes it that 
in point of fact, a Christian, and of mest 
entire and decided character too, may 
not unfrequently be seen to mingle with 
the one, and need never in a single in- 
stance lend his presence to the other ?— 
How comes it that the same individual, 
whom, because of his spiritual taste, you 
will never once detect within the walls 
of a theatre, you may, and without, it is 
to be presumed, any compromise of his 
taste or his principle, often mect even in 
a carnal or common-place household 
party? By what clue of reasoning is it, 
that we shall make out the consistency 
of the feeling that the atmosphere of the 
latter is just as tainted with ungodliness, 
as the atmosphere of the former—with 
the fact that he is never known to enter 
within the limits of the one, while he oft 
is compassed round with the other, and 
breathes it for hours, not perhaps with 
great positive satisfaction, but at least with 
toleration or even with comfort? Surely 
if the element of this world’s companion- 
ship be as uncongenial with that of 
Christianity, as is the element of this 
world’s more public and fashionable gai- 
eties—then should not a disciple be just 
as much out of his element in the one 
situation as in the other; and let us know 
therefore, how you count it an unlikely 
thing that a Christian should ever be 
found to take part among the diversions 
of earthliness, when you affirm of him, 
that, actually and historically, he may at 
times be found arnong the societies of 
earthliness ? 

The great principle by which this 
whole obscurity is unravelled is, that 
there is a mighty difference between the 


82 


act of your going voluntarily forth upon 

temptation, and the circumstance of temp- 

~ tation coming unsought and unasked a 
upon you. ‘The first sort of encounter is | 
by your own will; and you have no | 
warrant for believing that you will be 
upheld in safety, against a hazard which 
you have presumptuously dared. The 
second sort of encounter is by the will of 
flim who has placed us among the duties 
and events, each of his own neighbour- 
hood; and we do have the warrant for 
believing, that we shall be upheld in 

safety against a hazard into which we 
have been providentially brought. The 
man who looks with heedful jealousy to 

his way, will not rush upon temptation. 

But still God may suffer him to be 
tempted, though not beyond that which 

He will enable him to bear. 

Now this, generally speaking, is the 
difference between a public amusement, 
and a private company. Both may be 
alike uncongenial with godliness—nor 
may it be possible to inhale the spirit, 
and catch the prevalent tone and sympa- 
thy of either, without dispossessing the 
heart of all sacredness. But to be in 
contact with the one, you have, speaking 
mn the general, to make the originating 
movement. ‘T’o bring you into contact 
with the other, there are a thousand 
foreign urgencies that: have their origin 
without, and which come upon you in 
the attitude of passiveness. That you be 
in the theatre, there must be a spontane- 
ous forth-going on your part; or if you 
did not originate the proposal, you could 
easily, still speaking in the general, and 
without offence have made your escape 
from it—so that if there, you are there 
because you choose ; and, whatever sedu- 
cing influence may be in this place of 
entertainment, you have voluntarily ap- 
proached or presumptuously braved it. 
That you be in the private society, may 
be the effect not of choice, but of circum- 
stances—a trial not of your own making, 
but a trial brought upon: you by the ar- 
rangements of Providence—an exposure 
which in itself mav be fully as hazard- 
ous as the other, but still an exposure 
that instead of courting, you rather 
would have shrunk froin, had it not been 
for some call of necessity, or even some 
eall of obligation which you could not 
otherwise have conscientiously disposed 





AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 


[SERM. 


of. For, take notice—there is all the 
difference poss.ble as to indication of 
character, and all the difference as to 
security against any pernicious opera- 
tion on the character, and all the differ- 
ence as to the will and countenance of 
Him with whom in every footstep of 
your history you have to do, between the 
movement adopted by one who at his 
own bidding goeth out of his way, and 
the movement impressed upon one by 
the manifold besetting influences which 
meet him on his way. And who shall 
say, that, by one sweeping and summary 
act of rejection, all these influences are 
to be cast aside? Who shall say that it 
is the part of the Christian, to shut his 
door against the stranger that has been 
thrown upon his courtesies ?—or dis- 
tantly to scowl on all the convivialities 
which take place within the circle of his 
unconverted relationship ?—or even fear- 
fully, as if in superstition, to absent him- 
self from those festivities which are made 
subservient to the plans and the consul- 
tations of merchandise? ‘T'he path of 
every heavenward traveller is beset with 
difficulties—yet it is not his part to vault 
them, by one single act of rapid and reso- 
lute energy; but to walk and to feel his* 
way through them, with wisdom and 
prayer to God and much circumspection: 
And most assuredly of all, has he failed 
of hitting the exact proprieties of his con- 
dition—if the aspect he bear among his 
fellows, be that of a morose and repulsive 
and unconciliating gruffness ; or if heso 
wear the badge of his profession, as to 
disguise from the eye of the world the 
great characteristics of Christianity, as 
the religion of kindness and the religion 
of liberty. 

It is no infringement upon a man’s 
liberty, that he is led by the impulse of 
his own taste; and so, with a taste that 
disinclines him from the society of the 
world, does a Christian, in the full exer- 
cise of freedom, keep aloof as much as 
he may from companies, with whose 
spirit and with whose favourite themes 
he cannot amalgamate. Neither is it 
any infringement on a man’s liberty, that 
he is led by the impulse of his own fears, 
to shun an exposure by which he may 
hurt or hazard the very dearest interest 
that his heart is set upon; and so, still 
in the full exercise of freedom, may he 


x.J 


cultivate to the uttermost his distance 
from a society, the very breath of which 
serves to taint, and to reduce the spiritu- 
ality of all his affections. Thus far, you 
will allow that he keeps on the high walk 
of reason and principle—not at all recoil- 
ing like a man of points, and with slavish 
or superstitious fearfulness, from the mere 
act of worldly association ; but reflecting 
like a man of sense and observation on 
the spirit or tendency of the act, and lay- 
ing down the general habit of his life ac- 
cordingly. And it is thus, that wherever 
he can, he will of his own independent 
choice seek for his companionship among 
the godly rather than among the un- 
godly; among those who are travelling 
to Heaven, rather than among those who 
grovel in the dust of this perishable earth ; 
among the generous aspirants after the 
holiness of a divine nature—rather than 
among those who care for nothing higher 
in grace or in virtue, than the equities of 
human business or the civilities of human 
neighbourhood. 

Yet it may often happen, that, instead 
of him seeking after the companionship, 
it Is a companionship which has beset 
and closed around him—instead of a 
temptation upon which he has voluntarily 
gone forth, it may be a temptation into 
which he has been providentially brought, 
a thing not of will, but of circumstances ; 
which, though he had no call of duty to 
create for himself, yet, now that they are 
created for him by another, he has no 
call of duty to make his escape from— 
but the contrary. And it is here that the 
strength and the sacredness, and the 
liberality of the Christian spirit, will 
come into manifestation; and he will 
prove how nobly he stands exempted 
from any wretched scrupulosity about the 
act, and that all which concerns him 
is the enlightened guardianship of hisown 
heart against the consequences ; and most 
gratefully will he mingle with the society 
to which the hand of some fortuitous, or 
perhaps some duteous necessity, has 
brought him ; and decorate the scene not 
upon which he has entered, but rather to 
which he has been carried, by the living 
light of his own Christianity and the 
loveliness of its moral accomplishments ; 
and, walking to those who are without 
in a wisdom that he has already prayed 
for, will he be upholden through all the 


\ 
AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 


83 


delicacies of an intercourse, which, at 
times, it may be necessary to have, 
but which he knows it were most hazard- 
ous to indulge in. And thus, while called 
upon to love not the world, and to dread 
a contamination to his own spirit, should 
he for the sake of its gratifications, volun- 
teer his presence among its companies ; 
yet, through these very companies will 
he pass unhurt, when either the calls of 
duty or the necessities of business have 
so involved him. That world which, at 
all times it were unlawful to court, ceases 
at these times to be a forbidden territory ; 
and, teeming though it does, with the 
elements of moral evil, it is often by the 
gtrangements of Providence the field of 
Christian warfare—that appointed scene, 
among the duties and the dangers and 
the difficulties of which, the soldier of 
Jesus Christ is trained and disciplined for 
the services of eternity. 

The apostle Paul seems, in one of his 
epistles to the disciples at Corinth, to 
look on their occasional convivialities 
with the men of the world as unavoida- 
ble ; and that it was not possible entirely 
to give these up, without going out of the 
world altogether. The honest experi- 
ence of those who now hear us, will be 
the best authority which they can consult 
upon the question—whether this is or is 
not in some measure still the place and 
the predicament of Christians— whether 
it were possible or even right, to cut with 
the intimacies of relationship—or if the 
urgencies of business do not indispensa- 
bly require the acts of festivity, as well as 
of fellowship, with unconverted men—or 
if it were doing a service either to one’s 
own spirit or to the cause of that gospel 
which he is bound to adorn, did he keep 
morosely aloof from the traveller who 
has been recommended to the protection 
of his roof or the politeness of his courte- 
sies. Bring a free and a fearless spirit 
to these investigations. Never lose sight 
of Christianity, as being, nota religion of 
acts, but a religion of principles; and 
that whenever the latter can be guaranteed 
from injury, it regards the former witha 
most smiling and benignant toleration. 
Be very sure that there is a way of veing 
rightfully acquitted of all this casuistry, 
without escaping from it into a cell or 
ahermitage. This is an alternative from 
which our great apostle most evidently 


84 [SERM 


ON CHRISTIAN CONVERSATION, 
declines ; and it is in striking conformity | they should be taken out o, the world. 


with his deliverance* that our Saviour | He only prays that they should be kept 


prays on behalf of his disciples—not that | from the evil of it. 


* See 1 Cor, v. 10. 





SERMON XI. 


On Christian Conversation. 


“ Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. 


Let your speech be alway 


with grace, seasonedwith salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”—Co.Los-_ 


BIANS iv. 5, 6. 

. 

WE trust, we may have now made 
it abundantly palpable, that a man of 
truly spiritual taste will not cultivate a 
voluntary and habitual companionship 
with the children of this world, save from 
an impulse of duty, or from the design of 
rendering to them a Christian benefit. 
But whether he move forward to their 
society or not, their society will often 
close around him ; and that, in the course 
of opportunities which he ought not to 
decline, and under providential arrange- 
ments that he neither can nor ought 
to control. And, when thus implicated, 
the question is, how shall he acquit him- 
self so as to walk in wisdom to those who 
are without ? 

In the observations which follow, we 
shall restrict ourselves to the wisdom of 
speech as distinct from the wisdom of con- 
duct ; and thatthe apostle had the former 
chiefly, if not exclusively, in his eye, 
we hold to be apparent, from the second 
of these two verses—“ Let your speech 
be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, 
that ye may know how ye ought to 
answer every man.” 

From this passage it would appear, 
first, that mere sincerity and strength of 
Christian affection are not enough of 
themselves, to carry us aright in our walk 
and conversation to those who are with- 
out. ‘There is much to be gathered from 
the selection which the apostle here 
makes of that one attribute, by which he 
would have the deportment of Christians 
towards those who are without, to be 
cuaracterized. It is the attribute of wis- 
dom. It would appear that zeal is not 
enough,—that affectionate earnestness is 


not enough,—that the fervency of our de- 
sires for the glory and interest of religion, 
is not enough. Had we nought to do but 
to resign ourselves to the impulse of these, 
as the sole actuating principles of our 
converse with the world,—then might 
we just give unrestrained and unregu- 
lated vent to that abundance of the heart, 
out of which the mouth speaketh. And 
thus, many would be the effusions of 
warmth and of vehemence that should 
break in upon the ear of general society; 
and daring, as well as frequent, would 
be the inroads of Christianity on those 
festive boards, where now, the topic were 
a very strange and before unheard-of 
novelty; and often, would there come 
forth at random, from the lips of some 
honest and desirous believer, such an 
utterance, as, In our present habits of in- 
tercourse, would lay a freezing arrest on 
the whole current of the foregoing con- 
versation, and leave the adventurous 
zealot to fill up, as he may, the pause of 
silence and astonishment that he himself 
had created. Such eruptions were cer- 
tainly more frequent amongst us, but for 
the delicacy, or rather, perhaps, the cow 
ardice of Christians. Yet there is a 
higher principle than either of these, 
which should go a certain length to re- 
press them. ‘The words that are uttered 
should be words in season. The man 
who speaks them should know how he 
ought to speak. So, that the apostle does 
not confide the matter of religious con- 
versation to zeal or earnestness alone. 
And, accordingly, in the text, he singles 
out wisdom, if not as the impelling, at 
least as the guiding principle, that should 


XL] ON CHRISTIAN 
preside over this important occasion of 
frequent and almost daily occurrence in 
the walk of Christians. 

Secondly, there might be an excess of 
talk upon Christian subjects to those who 
are without. If there be any wisdom 
that is more specially meant than another 
in this passage, it must be the wisdom of 
winning souls. Now, the zeai that would 
urge you onward to ceaseless and indis- 
criminate loquacity about religion, werc 
directly in opposition to such wisdom. 
Whenever disgust, or irritation, or any 
feeling of annoyance, is manifested at the 
topic, there must be a material damage 
mflicted upon the hearer by persisting in 
it. For it is very possible thus to arm 
him into a more resolute and stout-hearted 
defiance of the whole subject; and to 
add to the number of those unpleasant 
recollections wherewith in his mind it 
stands associated; and, in a word, to 
make serious Christianity more the topic 
of his ridicule or his resentment than be- 
fore. ‘That there lies a limit somewhere 
to the freedom and the copiousness of 


_ our speech on the topics of sacredness | 


is evident, from such injunctions, as— 
“ Give not that which is holy unto dogs” 
—and, “Cast not your pearls before 
swine’—and, “If they will not hear you, 
shake off the dust of your feet as a testi- 
mony against them.” It is thus, we be- 
lieve, that many a Christian conversation 
is repressed in embryo—even in com- 
panies where there may be a few indi- 
viduals whose heart is wholly toward 
these things. By means of a delicate 
and discerning tact, the surrounding 
taste and disposition may very speedily 
be ascertained ; and the way may have 
been sounded to an opening, and found to 
be impracticable ; and it may have been 
concluded, and inmost rightly concluded, 
that there was something in the general 
pulse of those about you, that was un- 
suited to serious conversation, and for- 
bade the introduction of it: And, thus it 
is possible, that the man who never 
breathes more congenially than in the 
free circulation of Christian feelings and 
Christian experience, may hold it expe- 
dient to keep the aspiring tendencies of 
his bosom in check or in inaction ; and 
that bent, though he is on the honour of 
his Master’s name, he may still in such 








CONVERSATION. _ 85 
circumstances count his best and fittest 
wisdom to be the wisdom of silence. 

There. are many reasons, why the 
topics of Christianity should not be 
pressed beyond a certain limit, on those 
who refuse to entertain them. It may 
often be distinctly seen, whether the 
effect may not be to harden their con- 
science the more; and to aggravate the 
euilt of all their previous resistance to 
the gospel ; and to encourage those who 
are beside them, and perhaps not so 
established in impiety as themselves, to 
join forces against the man who has thus 
gratuitously offered to jar, and discom- 
pose the society, and thus to cause that 
which is good to be evil spoken of, by 
transforming a thing of high benevo- 
lence, ito a thing of offensive contro- 
versy. All these evils might be incurred 
by the heedless and premature introduc- 
tion of this great concern as a topic of 
conversation. You must be aware of 
many companies, where the whole mis- 
chief which we have now specified, and 
much more, would be a certain result of 
the experiment in question: and this 
might serve to prove that along with a 
spirit of zeal prompting to the utterance 
of religious feelings, there should also 
be the vigilance of an enlightened wis- 
dom to regulate, and sometimes to re- 
strain it. 

But, additional to this, there is a ver 
wide gradation in the amount of that a 
come, which different people will give to 
Christianity, and in the kind of topics 
they are prepared to listen to with plea- 
sure, or at least with toleration. Some 
will bear to be addressed on the highest 
mysteries of a Christian’s experience, 
and can sympathise with the utterance 
of his most saintly and spiritual affections. 
Others, without much experience, but 
with much earnestness, can suffer to be 
spoken to of the urgent and awful im- 
portance of the gospel, and to be told of 
its high demands on the attention of 
guilty creatures—who are so fast speed: 
ing their way to death and to the judg- 
ment-seat. Others, who would recoil 
from any personal exhibition either of 
their feelings or their fears, would not 
refuse to take up Christianity, with that 
calmer sort of interest which attaches to 
a matter of intellect, or a matter of spe- 


86 ON Ch. RISTIAN 
culation—and thus an opening may be 
had, and room for conversation may be 
found, in the doctrine of the Bible, in 
the meaning of its passages, in the evi- 
dence that there is for its authority and 
inspiration. 

Many more there are, who would de- 
cline from such an argument as this, but 
who would give their attendance through- 
out all those outworks of the subject, 
which might be denominated the environs 
of Christianity ; and the man who is all 
things to all men, might, at certain mo- 
ments of this excursion, along with the 
topics of patronage, or pauperism, or civil | 
and ecclesiastical polity, give his timely 
thrust to the conscience, and make his 
slailful transition to the very essentials of 
that question, on which there turns the 
good of a sinner’s eternity. But still you 
must perceive there is need for wisdom, 
as well as zeal in the whole management 
of this intercourse with human beings; 
and that it is not enough for the heart to 
be full of sacred affections, but that 
further than this, the way in which its 
abundance shall be discharged upon 
others, should be intelligently gone about. 
ft must be quite evident that no good 
is done by the effusion of this Christian 
adventurer, unless he carry the willing 
regards of his company along with him, 
unless he have felt this way to a certain 
measure of acceptance for those high 
themes on which his heart is ‘set most 
desirously ; and that there are distinct 
intimations in the awkwardness or rest- 
iveness or embarrassed silence of the 
party, against which it were utterly vain 
to attempt their religious good by talking 
of religion, as it would be to proselyte the 
stones of the field, or preach among the 
rocks of the desolate wilderness. 

Thirdly, there may be such a difficulty 
of management in this matter, as to 
justify the cultivation of an assiduous 
distance from the world. And you may 
now see perhaps more strongly than be- 
fore, the principle which may be expected 
to regulate the fellowship of a Christian 
with the children of this world. It is not 
to be thought of him, that he will by the | 
impulse of his own proper taste move | 
himself towards a society, where he has 
no hope either of doing good or receiving 
it—that he should love to mingle in per- 
son for hours together, among those with 








' 


VONVERSATION, 


{sERM. 


whom there is no responsive mingling 
of hearts at the utterance of that name, 
which is most dear to him—that he 
should not feel in a state of exile, or 
of abandonment, when fated to a condition, 
where no door of access is to be found for 
those themes, which stand linked to his 
imagination with the fondest hopes and 
the highest glories of his existence. 
every other department of human life, 
you see how they are men of kindred 
profession, and kindred pursuit, who 
draw most frequently tog ether—how dull 
and listless a thing conviviality is with 
those, between whom there is no commu- 
nity of feeling or of interest—how the 
scholar of abstract and abstruse medita- 
tion, would droop as if out of his element 
at some joyous festival of gay and gallant 
military—or the mariner would sink into 
downright apathy and weariness, at a 
meeting of agriculturalists. 
fact, that the various orders of acquaint- 
anceship are formed—that likeness of 
habit and of condition is the great assim- 
ilating tie, which associates men into 
intimacy together—that wherever there 
is the greatest alliance of taste, or of cir- 
cumstances, then also there is the most 
frequent interchange of hospitality: And 
all we ask is allowance for the same 
peculiarity among the people called- 
Christians—that on the universal princi- 
ple of men ranging themselves according 
to the sympathies of their kindred condi- 
tion or character, it shall not be thought 
unnatural, if they, who are dying unto 
the world, shall often be found in close 
and separate companionship antong them- 
selves, and standing aloof from those 
who cling to the world as their only rest- 
ing place. Letsome hopeful and distant 
adventure be held out to our people; and 
a hundred families be tempted thereby to 
a purpose of emigation—you will in- 
stantly perceive a busier and more exclu- 
sive intercourse among them than before. 
They will leave to others the whole argu- 
mentation of home prices and home 
politics, and all that variety of home in- 
tellizence, from the feeling of which, and 
the interest of which, they are now upon. 
the eve of a final disruption; and the 
urgent topics of the preparation, and the 


| outfit, and the voyage, and the employ- 


ments or the gains of that foreign terri- 
tory on which they are to spend the 


ie 


It is thus, in © 


xi.J ON CHRISTIAN 
remainder of their earthly existence— 
these will groupe our adventurers to- 
gether into many a keen and separate 
conversation. And who would ever think 
of remarking this as an oddity that was 
at all unaccountable? And yet it is just 
on the working of the very same human 
_ propensities, that we can vindicate all the 
exclusion and all the illiberality which 
are charged upon Christians. Most 
happy would they be, that the ‘whole 
species were to embark on the same en- 
terprise for heaven with themselves. But, 
if otherwise, you are not to wonder that 
these voyagers of immortality have much 
to say, that will be of mighty interest to 
one another, and of no interest to the 
world—that engrossed as they are with 
the preparation, and the outfit, and the 
splendours of that eternal city whither 
they are bound, they who thus walk by 
faith, and not by sight, should talk often 
together—that, save when the leadings of 
duty ot of Providence are upon them, 
they should never feel moved to a fre- 
quent intercourse with those who are 
without, by the leadings of their own 
inelination—and that but to gain more 
recruits to the expedition on which they 
have entered, they should seldom mingle 
in those societies where God is forgotten, 
and where all sense of eternity is sus- 
pended. 

Fourthly, what adds to the difficulties 
of our walk among those who are with- 
out, is that while an excess of talk on 
Christian subjects may disgust them— 
there may be such a deficiency of talk as 
is tantamount to the denial of Christ. 
And what adds to the perplexities of a 
Christian disciple upon this subject is— 
that, whereas, if in general company he 


should say too much, he may injure the | 
cause that he should labour to recom- | 


mend—yet, if in the same company he 
should say too little, he may incur the 
guilt of denying the Saviour. He may 
deny Him by his silence. He, at least, 
if silent, abstains from confessing Him— 
and then to think of the appalling denun- 
ciation that whosoever confesseth not, 
Christ before men, neither shall Christ. 
confess him before the angels which are 
in heaven. And it is often sharae, too, 
that restrains his utterance—that shame 
of the Saviour as his Lord, which shall 
make the Saviour ashamed of him as 


CONVERSATION, 87 
His disciple—that fear of man which is 
a snare—that delicacy which recoils from 
such an exhibition of his feelings or 
of his faith, as causes him to falter from 
the intrepidity of a firm and consistent 
profession—that cowardice, which might 
not have shrunk from a gospel testimony 
under the threats of an inquisition in 
ancient Rome, but which will shrmk 
from the same testimony under the terror 
or the tenderness or the undescribable 
restraints of a drawing-room in modern 
Christendom—that nervous imbecility 
which would not have succumbed at 
sight of the grim apparatus of martyrdom, 
but which does succumb to the might 
and the mystery of that spell, w herewith 
the fashion of this world hath subor- 
dinated all its votaries. 

It is the dread of his own treachery 
to Christ—it is the secret consciousness 
of a misgiving from His cause in the 
presence of its enemies—it is the felt 
urgency of the obligation to do all and 
to say all in His name, contrasted with 
that fearfulness by which he knows that 
he is actuated—These are what night 
often impel him to disburden his con- 
science, by breaking forth on the ears of 
an astonished paity, with the utterance 
of his distaste for the world and the 
world’s vanity. But aware at the same 
time that it is of mightier importance to 
win others than to relieve himself; and 
that he is bidden to be wise as well as 
courageous; and that he ought not to out- 
rage the feelings which he can possibly 
conciliate; and that his way is not clear 
through the mazes.of a dilemma which 
he still finds to be inextricable—It is 
under the contest of these deeply felt 





and oft experienced difficulties, that 
many a conscientious disciple has retir- 
ed to as great a distance from this 





world’s majorities as he may—declining 
ithe general society that can be av oided, 
just as he would some miss sionary 
‘ground that is found to be impracticable 
—and praying for the guidance of the 
lw isdom that is from en high, through 
all that society which he neither ought, 
‘nor is able to abandon. 

ry ifthly, we must not abandon in des- 
|pair the cause of making a general im- 
pression on the world, even through the 
| medium of this world’ § companies. And 
in the midst of all this helplessness, 





‘ 


88 ON CHRISTIAN 
there is one thing which the Christian 
never must abandon—the cultivation of 
every opening for the Christian good of 
his fellow men. If in pursuit of this ob- 
ject, he have hitherto knocked in vain at 
the door of general society, he may retire 
for a season, but to arm himself with 
strength and wisdom for a fresh attempt 
on that which he yet has found to be im- 
pregnable. It is possible that he himself 
may not be ripe for such an experiment— 
not yet enough of Christian decision— 
not yet enough of simple dependence 
upon God—not yet enough of sacred 
benevolence in his own heart, which 
beaming forth in unquestionable evidence 
on all whom he addressed, might pro- 
pitiate their respectful hearing, to the 
urgency wherewith he bore upon them— 
not yet enough at ease in his religion, 
so as to come forth spontaneously and 
with the full command of all his resour- 
ces in the face of resistance and ridicule. 

It may only be one man in a hundred, 
who could acquit himself of all the deli- 
cacies of such a task, or act the part of 
a Christian apostle when seated at the 
board of hospitality. But though there 
should be only of such a very few who 
are now hearing us, yet, let us give these 
to understand, that the vocation for which 
God hath accomplished them, is 0° im- 
portance as high, as that of those hardy 
adventurers who bear the tidings of the 
gospel to distant lands—that to carry the 
doctrine of Christ with acceptance into 
the heart of our alienated companies at 
home, were an achievement as much to 
be wondered at, as to carry it abroad 
among the deepest recesses of Paganism 
—that to cross the sea, and to penetrate 
the desert in quest of proselytes to the 
faith, is not an enterprise more daring, 
than to scale those moral barriers which 
lie around a polite and lettered society, 
and there to propound the terms and the 
mysteries of our faith, in the midst of an 
assembled audience. And, if one may 
judge from the aspect of the times, the 
day is not far off when a talent lile this 
will find scope and matter for its exer- 
cise—when the demand for Christian in- 
formation will become more intense. and 
the realities of the gospe. wil. challenge 
a larger space in the affairs and the con- 
versation of men—when the veil shall be 


ifted off from many eyes, and the things | 


CONVERSATION, . 





[SERM. 


of eternity shall be revealed in all the 
commanding magnitude which belongs 
to them—and in return for the wisdom 
of those who are the friends of Christian- 
ity, the Spirit shall subdue under them 
the will of its enemies. 

Lastly, much is to be done through the 
medium of private and affectionate con- 
verse. For meanwhile, and in defect of 
the talent or the hardihood that may be 
requisite for tabling the matter amidst 
the collisions of general society—it were 
well if every devoted Christian laid him- 
self out to Christian usefulness, on ever 
occasion that he felt himself able for ; 
and more particularly, if unfit to brave 
the exposure of himself on a wider and 
more conspicuous arena, that he distilled 
the sacredness of his affections through 
the privacies of individual acquaintance- 
ship. Here too, often is there the barrier 
of a formidable delicacy in the way ofa 
full and explicit communication; and 
never at times is it felt to be stronger than 
between the nearest of kindred; and it 
absolutely looks as if withheld by infer- 
nal sorcery, the man cannot though he 
would unbosom himself to those of his 
own blood, on the topic of their highest 
and mightiest concernment. And yet 
were this accursed incantation only 
broken; and did each mind step forth 
from its obstinate hiding-place ; and could 
the one friend burst loose from all the 
restraints which heretofore had held him, 
and pour of his Christian fervency into 
another’s ear—may it be found that the 
man whom you never could have ar- 
rested in the midst of other company, 
will when spoken to alone, offer a glad 
and grateful welcome to your message: 
And, precious reward of intrepidity and 
faithfulness, may .we reclaim a_ brother 
from the error of his way, and cause 
Heaven to rejoice on a new accession to 
the great spiritual family. i 

And here we must remark, as an en- 
couragement to more frankness and free- 
dom than at present do obtain through- 
out society in the utterance of religious 
sentiment, that often, in quarters where 
it was least expected, is it found to be 
met, not with toleration merely, but even 
with thankfulness. It is, therefore, wor- 
thy of an occasional experiment, though 
it Should be hazarded in companies whieh 
you fear to be most alienated. It is hard 


xt] ON CHRISTIAN 
that whi.e trade, and agriculture, and 
politics, and science, all find such ready 
and respectful acceptance in the converse 
of society—no place and no entertain- 
ment should be found for Christianity ; 
but, for ought that is known previous to 
an attempt, this may be as much due to 
the despair of her friends, as it is to the 
dislike or resistance of her enemies. It 
were too much to try the establishment 


of a monopoly in her favour; but why, 


amid the free and abundant circulation 
of other articles, should this alone be 
treated as contraband? And therefore it 
were not amiss, that a man of sense, and 
colloquial firmness, should at times re- 
conuoitre the party by which he is sur- 
rounded, and actually propounding that 
theme which is dearest to his bosom, 
should adventure himself on the currency 
and reception that it may meet with. Let 
it be done with ease—let it be done with 
breeding—let it be done, not in the spirit 
of fearfulness as if for the relief of an op- 
pressed conscience, but done in the more 
generous style of one who loves the fel- 
lowship of his species, and should like 
to raise every member of it to the delight 
of his own exercises, and the dignity of 
his own contemplations. We are aware 
that with all this to recommend it, the 
attempt may misgive, and a sudden ar- 
rest be laid by it on the flow and facility 
of conversation, and the adventurer be 
instantly made to feel as if the door of 
access was shut against him. But there 
are times, and there are places where it 
is otherwise ; and where unexpected wel- 
come is given to the utterance of serious- 
ness; and where a responsive feeling is 
awakened, and room afforded for the 
lifting up of a gospel testimony; and de- 
light both courteously expressed, and 
cordially felt at this novel style of enter- 
tainment ; and the discovery made, that 
the general silence of this world’s com- 
panionship on the high topics of eternity, 
may be sometimes as much due to the 
want of intrepidity in the one party, as to 
the want of disposition in the other. So 
that on this untrodden walk of Christian 
philanthropy, something may be achieved. 
“ The field is the world ;’ and there may 
be places on the civilized region of it, 
more inaccessible, than on the most re- 
mote countries of its savage and unknown 
territory ; and the ocean or the wilder- 
12 


CONVERSATION. 89 
|ness which separate from the latter, may 
not be of more difficult transition, than 
are the thousand artificial delicacies 
which obstruct the pathway of communi- 
cation to the former. And, thus the zeal 
and the devotedness, and withal the wis- 
dom of a most accomplished missionary, 
may be as indispensably called for, in a 
service which ought not to be neglected, 
as altogether unpromising ; and, in the 
face even of its many discouragements, 
ought not to be abandoned in despair. 
And let us specify one thing, which 
would do much to clear and facilitate the 
way to such an enterprise as Wwe are now 
recommending. Its heaviest obstacle by 
far, is the deep and the deadening silence 
that often ensues on the first utterance of 
a religious sentiment. ‘The adventurer 
must be supported by the co-operation of 
your replies, or the experiment is abor- 
tive. ‘l'hat he should be left to sermon- 
ize at the board of free and: equal com- 
panionship, is altogether out of the ques- 
tion. It is not a dissertation that is 
wanted, but a dialogue—a thing that is 
sustained by the play and the colloquial 
interchange of human sentiments—the 
reciprocation of mind with mind, inso- 
much that a contest with well-bred in- 
fidelity, were not half so insupportable, 
as this formal and ministerial harangue 
in the midst of a dumb-struck auditory. 
Were it but a question that marked 
the interest of the hearers, it might serve 
as a stepping-stone, and an encourage- 
ment to the process ; and you cannot but 
perceive, how much out of keeping it 
were with the whole character and com- 
plexion of a party, if the speaker shall be 
abandoned to work his long and solitary 
passage through the still medium of a 
freezing and hopeless taciturnity. ‘The 
thing in short demanded and felt to be 
necessary is, that a topic connected with 
Christianity, shall be taken up as easily 
and fallen in with as readily and prose- 
cuted as freely, as any other topic of hu- 
man interest or speculation: And just as 
the politeness of genteel and cultivated 
men forms, in general, a sufficient guar- 
antee against the disturbance that might 
be excited by the acrimony of a_heated 
partizanship in politics—so, under the 
shelter of the same guarantee, religion in 
its piety, or religion in its great and es 
| sential principles, may be talked of, with: 


99 ON CHRISTIAN 
out involy:ng the circle in the offence or 
irritation of its controversies. The thing 
may be attempted ; but without the contri- 
bution of some such welcome and accep- 
taney as this, the thing 1s utterly impracti- 
cable. The very feeling of such a barri- 
er, 18 Intimation enough of the topic being 


a fruitless one; and, just because the moral. 


clime is unsuited to it, that, to be produc- 
tive of a blessing, it must be borne away 
to a soil which is open to receive it, where 
it may find the harbour of another circle of 
acquaintanceship, and be made to thrive 
in the atmosphere of another society. 
Now, this were one good effect that 
should result from a more free and intre- 
pid utterance on the part of Christians. 
‘(here would then be a more clearly as- 
certained line of distinction between those 
who inclined to religious conversation, 
nud those who disrelished it. There is 
nothing that one nauseates more, than 
the companionship of those who have 
their own favourite topics—for which he 
feels no taste, and upon which he can 
hold no intelligent sympathy whatever 
vith those who are around him. Many 
of you must recollect how tiresome and 


¥ 
a 


disgustful it is—when the attentions of a | 


whole party are monopolized by a few, 
whose peculiar likings or peculiar ac- 
quirements, invariably lead them to one 
walk of remark or argument, that is just 
as insipid to all the others, as would be 
the gibberish of an unknown tongue: 
and, be it for example, the jockeyship of 
field sports, or the politics of a city cor- 
poration, or some rare topic of connois- 
seurship that none but themselves can 
either value or comprehend—you both 
. see what a ready and rejoicing -coales- 
cence they have with each other, and at 
the same time, how ill they are fitted to 
amalgamate with general society. And 
it is thus that the intimacies of social life 
are formed; and, just as it should be, 
that the spectacle is held forth of men 
drawn into more close and separate as- 
sociation together, by the tie of their sim- 
ilar pursuits or similar predilections ; and 
all we want is, that Christianity shall not 
be smothered under the weight of those 
many delicacies, which have interred 
her in deep concealment from the notice 





CONVERSATION, {[SERM. 
too, should feel their way to a common 
understanding ; and be indulged in the 
free and frequent participation of their 
mutual sympathies; and should be seen 
aggregating together in clusters—even 
as you see men of a kindred character or 
kindred profession in all the other walks 
of the community. It is most true, that 
if they give way to the abundance of 
their heart in general conversation, they 
will leave many at a distance, and per- 
haps many as impatient and as distasteful 
of their presence, as you would be of 
those who are ever deafening their com- 
pany with topics that no one savours, or 
no one cares for. But thus it is that the 
needful discoveries are made; and the 
men of a common taste find out one an- 
other ; and, in obedience to the impulse 
of it, they naturally and freely resolve 
themselves into distinct circles of com- 
panionship ; and the line of demarcation 
between the decided and the adverse 
comes forth into visibility ; and, precious 
fruit of that more frank and fearless ex- 
hibition of our Christianity which we 
now recommend, would they who are 
hostile, spontaneously, and of themselves, 
fall away, and they who are friendly, as 
spontaneously groupe themselves into as- 
sociations of willing and congenial inter- 
course. 

And lest this should appear like rais- 
ing a barrier of everlasting separation 
between the church and the world, let us 
here shortly evince the style of manage- 
ment that obtains, we have heard to a 
great extent, in the metropolis of British 
society. ‘There, devoted Christians do 
associate more exclusively with each other, 
and keep far more distinctly and de- 
cidedly aloof from the minglings of gen- 
eral acquaintanceship, and maintain a 
sort of hallowed and secluded. ground 
that does not lie open to the random in- 
vasions of those who are without; and 
yet is not closed round by a fence that is 
utterly impregnable. For the practice, 
as we understand it, is so to arrange the 
festive or the social party, as to compre- 
hend a few from among the wide and 
general outfield of humanity, though not 
so many as to overbear its character of 
sacredness. Let but the preponderancy 


of society, and in virtue of which her/|be secured for the Christian spirit and 


friends remain unknowing and unknown 
to each other. It were right, that they, 





conversation of the meeting; and, up to_ 


this indispensable object, may admittance 


xu.J ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. 9. 


be granted even to the farthest off in| pitalities of human intercourse may be 
alienation from the concerns of eternity. | made subservient to the evangelization of 
‘The experience is, that, however difficult | our species; and often when the voice 
for the friends of the gospel to face this | of expostulation has fallen from the pulpit 
world’s majorities, with an incorrupt tes-; without efficacy, has it been found cf 
timony and a pure or consistent exhibi-| Christianity that she has other graceful 
ton in ks favour—it is not so difficult to und happy exhibitions at command, 
charm, or even to assimilate the loose: wherewith to soften the heart cf man out 
and seattered minorities of the world, | of all its prejudices —that what cannot be 
when the collective influence of a num-| done by the verbal demonstrations of the 
ber of Christians is brought, as it were,| minister, may be done by the personal 
separately and piecemeal, to bear upon! exhibitions of woith and mildness that 
them. ‘lhe very fact of their presence, | are frequently held out in the converse of 
their very acceptance of the issued invi-| private society. And when religion is 
tation, may argue a degree of predisposi-| thus blended, as it sometimes is in the 
tion, which only needs to be fostered by | upper walks of life, with the fascinations 
the delicacies of judicious kindness, into! cf taste and elegance and literary accom- 
an established attachment for the ways of | plishment—such a union of saint-like 
peace and of true wisdom, So that it is| piety on the one hand, with the polish 
not necessary to abandon the world to; and the ornament of finished cultivation 
itself, or to lay a stern interdict on all its| on the other, has often sent fo.th an in- 
approximations. ‘There is a way in| fluence upon the beholder on the side of 
wh-ch, consistently with all that has been | that gospel he wont to despise, which he 
urged or advanced by us, the very hos-| has felt to be utterly irresistible. 





SERMON Xii. 
On Christian Casuistry. 
“Tet every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”—Romans xiv. 5. 


Tuere is a kind of minuter casuistry | the mere conventional Shibboleth of a 
which it is extremely difficult to handle | party, and who wait till a clear reason 
from the mere want of something very | approve itself to their judgments, ere 
distinct or tangible to hold by; andj they can utter with their mouths a clear 
about which there is the greatest degree | and confident deliverance. 
of indecision, and that just from the loss; Some may have already guessed what 
at which we feel, to get any decisive | the questions are to which we are now 
principle of unquestioned evidence and | adverting. They relate to the degree 
authority to bear upon it—And, so it is, | of our conformity with the world, and 
that even the Christian mind fl:ctuates | to the share which it were lawful to take 
thereanent, and exhibits itself upon this | in its companies and amusements. You 

subject in a state both of vacillation and | must be aware on this topic of a certain 
variety. For while one class of the | unsettledness of opinion; while we know 
professors are heard to declaim, and to/| of none that wakens a more anxious de- 
dogmatise, and most strenuously to as-| gree of interest and speculation among 
severate with all the readiness of minds} those who are honestly aspiring after 
that are thoroughly made up on the | the right, and are most fearfully sensi- 
matters alluded to—there is another class | tive of the wrong in all their conversa- 
of them who cannot assume this certain-| tion. And if to tenderness of cop- 
ty without cause being shown, who | science, they add a certain force of intel- 
must have something more to allege for | ligence, they will not be satisfied with a 
‘the vindication of their peculiarities than | mere oracular response from those who 





92 


seem to be somewhat, and who speak 
as if from the vantage ground of their 
long initiation into higher mysteries. 
They are prepared for every surren- 
der, and are in readiness to follow ful- 
ly wherever the light of scripture, or 
of argument may carry them; but this 
light is the very thing they want, and 
are in quest of. It is their demand for 
the rationale of this matter, with the 
difficulty they feel in reaching it, that 
has thrown them into a kind of harass- 
ment about the whole affair from which 
they long to be extricated. And neither 
in the m: agisterial, but unapproved dicta- 
tion of one set of ‘Christians : nor in the 
yet unstable practice of another set of 
Christians, who are hovering about the 
margin that separates the church from 
the world, and ever tremulously veering 
between the sides of accommodation and 
non-conformity therewith—from neither 
of these parties in the great professing 
public of our day can they find repose 
to their spirits, because from neither 
they have found effectual relief to the 
painful ambiguity under which they are 
labouring. 
What has now drawn our attention 
more especially to this subject, is its 
strong identity in regard to principle 
with that question of Sabbath observa- 
tion, which we have recently attempted 
to elucidate. The elements of Christian 
liberty and expediency, and charity, ap- 
pear to be similarly involved in both, so 
as that we may avail ourselves of the 
same guidance as before, from the man- 
ner in which the apostle hath cleared 
and discriminated his way through the 
controversy that arose in his time about 
meats and days and ceremonies. In- 
stead, however, of going the whole 
ground over again, we shall barely state, 
rather than argument, many of our posi- 
tions—trusting for your concurrencetothe 
recollection of what you may before have 
heard, and before have acquiesced in. 
First, then, when the giving up of the 
theatre, and the giving up of public places, 
and the giving up of the festive and the 
fashionable parties of this world, are laid 
down for the observance of the young 
disciple in the shape of so many distinct 
and categorical impositions—it is a very 
possible thing that he may be thereby 
misled into an utter misconception of the 


ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. 





[SERM. 


design and nattre of Christianity. For 
these acts of rigid abstemiousness occupy — 
the place of works : and the punctual 
fulfilment of uhese may minister the com- 
placency of self-righteousness, and so 
land us in the capital error of transfer 
ring our plea for God’s meritorious favour 
from the ground of Christ’s obedience, to 
the ground of our own obedience. And 
besides, they are such acts as do not ne- 
cessarily imply any graceiul or elevated 
morality in the individual who has per- 
formed them. With him they ‘may be 
the mere heartless austerities of formal 
or Pharisaical devoteeship—the morose 
penances and self-inflictions of one who 
resolutely denies to his taste, that gratifi- 
cation which he, nevertheless, is still most 
desirously set upon—the stated sacrifices 
which are offered, not with, but against 
the entire current of the soul, that pines, 
perhaps, in secret mortification after those 
jubilees of mirth or of splendour, which, 
at the bidding of a stern, rigid, and un- 
compromising puritanism, he has been 
taught to put utterly away. It is, indeed, 
a very possible thing, that Christianity 
may thus be made to wear another as- 
pect than that in which she smiles so 
benignantly upon us from the New Tes 
tament—that instead of a religion of 
freedom, because her only control is that 
of heavenly and high-born principle, 
wherewith she rules, and by moral as- 
cendancy alone, over her willing and 
delighted votaries, she may be trans- 
formed into a narrow system of bigotry, 
whose oppressive mandates of touch not, 
and taste not, and handle not, bear no 
relation whatever to the spiritual depart- 
ment of our nature—only galling and 
subordinating the outer man, while they 
leave the inner man as remote, both in 
principle and affection from the ‘likeness 
of God, or the character of godliness as 
before. 

It is for this reason that we think. it 
greatly better, with ev ery young inquirer, 





a blow at the ca of his corruption, in- 
stead of mangling and lacerating at one 
of its branches—to go at once to the very 
essence of the controversy between him 
and God, even that he idolizes the crea- 
ture, and with a heart set upon its enjoy- 
ments, has cast the love and homage of 
the Creator away from hir —instead of 


Xan] *- 


charging him with a matter of doubtful 
criminality, to put it direct to his con- 
science, whether the world, or He who 
made the world, have the most permanent 
and practical hold of ascendancy over 
him. After having reached his convic- 
tions on this point, and laid open to him 
the nakedness of his spiritual condition, 
we would tell him that the thing for ad- 
justment at present was not the habitual 
attendance of his person upon places of 
public amusement; but the devoted at- 
tendance of his heart on the high places 
of a, far more stupendous and engrossing 
idolatry, to which he was wholly given 
over. We should, in all these cases, feel 
inclined to forbear the casuistry of theatres 
and assemblies, and the various resorts 
of fashionable gaiety, as being really not 
the matter on hand. ‘To male use of 
parliamentary language—we should be 
disposed, on the starting of this topic, to 
move the previous. question—or borrow- 
ing another expressive phrase from the 
same quarter, we should proceed to the 
order of the day. ‘The point of imme- 
diate urgency, and that should be first 
taken up, is his general state with God. 
The charge to be first brought home, is 
not that he is occasionally seen in a room 
of public entertainment; but, of far more 
tremendous import, that the ground which 
he constantly occupies is a ground of 
alienation from God, and from godliness. 
The quarrel is, not that he may some- 
times be detected in one of this world’s 
favourite haunting places—but that the 
world, with the full power of its seducing 
influences, has at all times the possession 
of his heart, that his only portion is there, 
and that there he has been living up to 
the present hour without any prevailing 
sense of God, or of eternity. 

In a word, we should like for the time 
being, to decline with him the ambigu- 
ous controversy about public festivals 
and public entertainments—and that, for 
the purpose of sounding in his ears the 
alarm of an actual, and a greater contro- 
versy that is still more appalling. In 
short, our indictment against him has 
only one article—not that he has been in- 
cidentally seen in places, which lie with- 
out the territory of sacredness ; but that, 
from that territory, he is wholly an out- 
‘cast and a wanderer. With such an en- 
quirer we should prefer dealing for the 


ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. 


93 


present among those solemn and un- 
doubted realities, the very magnitude of 
which, both gives them an imperative 
power over the attention, and causes 
them by the eye of his mind to be more 
distinctly, because more forcibly appre- 
hended. Thus, instead of trying to clear 
our way through the ambiguities of any 
subordinate question, we should like to 
reduce him—an arrested and a con- 
science-struck sinner to the question, what 
shall I do to be saved ?—and would ad- 
mit nothing else into our solution of it, 
than the mighty elements of his exile 
from God, and the way that God has 
taken to reconcile and to recall him. 
Now, it is on the personal settlement 
of this question, that a great personal 
change takes place upon the enquirer— 
that a vista is opened up through which 
desires and delights that were before un- 
known are let in upon the soul—that 
there ensues a great moral revolution, in 
virtue of which, what was before shrunk 
from either with dishke or with terror, 
becomes the object of a most attractive 
tenderness ; and what was before the ob- 
ject of eager pursuit and of much loved 
indulgence, is now regarded with uncon- 
cern, if not with positive detestation. 
Many, it is true, who profess the faith of 
the gospel, evince no such translation mto 
another habit and another history: But 
there are none who actually acquire the 
faith of the gospel—the tendencies of 
whose inner man are not thereby shifted, 
so as to point either in a diverse or op- 
posite direction from that they did before. 
Other glories than those of this world’s 
splendour now engage the affections ; and 
other paths than those of this world’s 
dissipations, are now the paths of peace 
and the ways of pleasantness. ‘The man 
who before was of the earth and earthly, 
now breathes with his spirit of the air of 
heaven; and loftier to him than the 
highest earthly flights of poetry or song 
is the music of Heaven’s psalmody. He 
now feels his kindred atmosphere to be 
in the house of prayer; and that time 
which wont to be an oppressive load 
upon the heart that ever sighed for relief 
from the burden of its own vacancy, he 
can now fill up, and most congenially 
too, with the labours of love and the 
works of righteousness. It may not, 
however be with the fierce intolerance 





94 


of a bigot, that he looks on the amuse- 
ments of other days, but simply with the 
indifference of one who has found his 
way to higher and better amusements. 
In the new tract to which he has betaken 
himse'f, all that we behold is the spon- 
¥.aneous emanation of a new taste—and 
not a rigorous or reluctant compliance, 
with any of the rigorous proprietzes of 
formal and common-place professorship. 
And should the result be, that he keeps 
himself from the ball-room or the theatre, 
this result is only one among the many ; 
and but an humble corollary out of the 
operation of great and noble elements. 
Along the whole of that march by 
which he has been conducted, we see 
nought but the impulse of generous af- 
fections and elevated principles—nor in 
any step of the process, whereon the 
passionate devotee of this world’s gaieties, 
has at length utterly and conclusively re- 
nounced them, is there one such character 
of moroseness or constraint, as would ill 
become the religion of liberty. 

Secondly, this forms another reason 
why we feel so much disposed to avoid 
any thing like a dogmatic deliverance on 
the subject of this world’s entertainments. 
It gives to the general eye an appearance 
of narrowness to our religion which 
really does not belong to it. Better 
surely to impregnate the man’s heart, 
first with the taste and spirit of our reli- 
gion; and, then, if this should supersede 
the taste and affection he before had for 
the frivolities of life, it impresses a far 
nobler character of freeness and great- 
ness on the change of habit that has taken 
place, when thus made to emanate from 
a change of heart—than when it appears 
in the light of a reluctant compliance 
with the rigid exaction of intolerance, 
the rationality and rightness of which 
are at the same time not very distinctly 
apprehended. Let the reformation in 
question, if reformation it be, come forth 
upon the habit of the man in this way— 
as the final upshot of a process by which 
the heart has been reformed, as the fruit 
of an internal change that has taken 
place on the taste and on the affections, 
through the power of the truth that is in 
Jesus, and whereby all old things have 
passed away, and allthings have become 
new. Better thus, than by a mandate on 
the subject issued from the chair of au- 


ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. 


[SERM. | 


thority. Better that it spring up, in 
kindly vegetation from the soil of the new 
nature, than that it be forced and driven 
forward at the stern call of an uncom- 
promising or unmeaning dogmatism. 
Better that it come at will as the spon- 
vaneous efflorescence of a previous change 
upon the inner man, than that without 
choice and without consent, it be laid as 
a yoke of bondage upon the outer man. 
You have heard of the new wine that 
was put into old bottles. The wine had 
not yet done with its fermentation ; and 
the leathern bottles of these days, that 
had lost their elasticity and were altoge- 
ther hard and unyielding, did not expand 
to the process, but were rent asunder 
and burst, so that both wine and bottles 
were destroyed. And the same may 
often be the result of prematurely putting 
into an old and yet unregenerated man 
those new observations, which are in 
most pleasing accordancy with the whole 
desire and habit of an altogether Chris- 
tian. The current maxims of professor- 
ship, about the total abstinence of his 
person from this world’s gaiety and com- 
panionship, lock to him as so many 
senseless and arbitrary impositions. The 
light of his mind does not yet go along 
with them. ‘Ihe high and tumultuating 
spirit of the man is stirred up to a revolt, 
against an intolerance for which he can- 
not see the authority of the reason. He 
is galled and restive under the shackles 
in which he has been made to fester ; 
and for no purpose which he can under- 
stand, as at all worthy of the self-denial 
that has been laid upon him. He will 
positively not bind himself down to the 
attitude of being so beset and harassed ; 
and the danger is, that, in some fit of ex- 
plosive impatience, he casts Christianity, 
along with the lessons of this mjudicious 
Christian tutorship, away from him. 
This new wine should be put into new 
bottles, which, without being torn, can 
stretch and accommodate their capacity 
to the ebullitions of the new liquor 
that has been deposited therein. In other 
words the man should be renovated- 
The mighty transition from nature to 
grace should take effect upon him. The 
great and elementary principles on which 
there hinges the conversion of the heart, 
should have told upon his conscience ; 
and he, being ushered by the Christian 





earthliness—as the occupations of a moral 


a ers bf * 
rege a eS 
he F 





faith into the joys of the divine counte- 
nance and tne hopes of eternity, the inor- 


dinate love of this world should have al- 
ready given place to those high and 
heavenly affections by which it is dispos- 
sessed. Whenthe new wine is thus put 
into a new bottle, both are preserved. 
The commandment to renounce the 
amusements of the world ceases to be! 


grievous, or rather the commandment 


itself ceases to be necessary. ‘The man, 
in all likelihood, may, after this change, 
never once be seen at any one indiscrim- 
inate intercourse—where fashion, and 
finery, and pleasure, form into one 
blended and brilliant attraction for the 


assembling together of this world’s multi- 


tudes. Yet it is not the scowl of monkery 
that he casts at them. It is not in the 
grim and ghastly spirit of antiquated 
puritanism, that he keeps his distance 
from them. ‘The whole amount of the 
matter is, that he is otherwise employed. 
He is taken up with something else that 
he likes better. He does not ask them to 
withdraw their presence from the place | 
where their heart is. And they surely | 
should not expect him to lend his pres- 
ence to a place where his heart is not. 
Let your theatres be purified of all blas- 
phemy and grossness—let the gossip of 
your parties be free of the venom of 
calumny—iet your games be unruffled 
by the fierce and frenzied agitations of 
desperate adventure—and let your assem- 
blies be chastened out of all but the 
thoughtless vivacity of light and emanci- 
pated spirits, that love, at the impulse of 
music, to expatiate in fairy circles on an 
illuminated scene of gracefulness and 
gaiety: and we are not aware upon what 
ground he can single out and stigmatise 
as a monstrous abomination any one of 
these varieties. And, yet he may look 
upon them all as so many varieties of 








| 


region distinct from the one through 
which he is travelling—and the delights 
of a clime of diverse air and quality, from 
that in which he can breathe with com- 
fort or satisfaction. It may be true that 
he has abandoned them, yet not at the 
bidding of a capricious intolerance, but 
in the unforced and unfettered exercise 
of his own liberty. As the new wine is 
suited to the new bottle, so are the present 
habits to the present heart of the new 





ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. 95 


creature in Jesus Christ our Lord. In 
the act of giving up the fashions or the 
frivolities of a passing world, he only 
follows the high behests of the judgment 
and the taste and the affection that are 
freely operating within his own regener- 
ated bosom—he only, in this. instance, 
exemplifies one of the many exhibitions 
that come forth of their own accord, from 
the feelings and the faculties of his 
spiritual nature. 

The reply that was once given by an 
aged Christian to the question of an anx- 
ious beginner at the work of Christianity, 
is quite in the zest and spirit of the prin- 
ciple that we now advocate. He saw his 
young friend to be on a hopeful career 
of enquiry, and had no doubt of the fina] 
result of all his conscientiousness; and 
perceived that he was moving aright 
among the great elementary feelings that 
relate to sin and repentance and faith; 
and when the question was put by him, 
whether he should now continue to go to 
the theatre, the answer was, that he might 
go as long as he could—an answer, we 
own, very much to our taste, and appear- 
ing to us as if replete with wisdom of a 
very high order: And, we appeal to 
yourselves, whether it was not greatly 
better, that, instead of admitting him to 
this doubtful disputation, he was left to 
the wholesome exercise of his spirit on 
the leading essentials of our faith, and, at 
length found Ins own way to that lofty 
vantage ground, whence he could descry 
such unfading glories as gave to his 
heart its full entertainment, and whence 
he could turn him from the now tasteless 
enjoyments of the world, to purer and 
nobler gratifications. 

But still it may be asked, is it not true 
of all the amusements referred to, and to 
which so many immortal creatures have 
devoted themselves, that in them the 
spirit of carthliness has the undoubted 
predominancy ; and that the places where 
they are held, leave their company on 
the broad way, and not on the narrow 
path, which leadeth to life everlasting ? 
Grant this to be true, and that all these 
obnoxious assemblages were broken up 
and dispersed of their visitors—these 
visitors may still keep on the broad way ; 
and we cannot distinctly see what is 
gained by drawing thousands away from 
the theatre and ball-room, if in the move 


96 


ment that we have impressed upon them, 
they shall all tarry at any point that is 
short of the conversion of their souls. 
There is a line of demarcation between 
the two great regions of the carnal and 
the spiritual; and though to the former 
you assign all the houses of public enter- 
tainment that ever had been reared, and 
so fulminate againt them till they are 
levelled to the dust, yet we see not 
the profit that accrues to Christianity, if 
all the worshippers of these conceived 
abominations still keep that side of the 
line of demarcation which they wont 
to occupy. In these circumstances, we 
would not like to address a worldly 
assemblage on the vanity of public places 
and public entertainments. We should 
take a loftier aim. We should feel as if 
nothing had been effected by pulling any 
one of these conclusively away from the 
theatre, if we had not pulled them across 
the mighty line of separation that marks 
off the region of grace from the region 
of sinful and unconverted nature. ‘To 
the achievement of this great transition 
then, would we give our first earnestness 
and our first energies; and, meanwhile, 
holding the subordinate question in abey- 
ance, would we try to find a way to their 
conscience with the appalling thoughts of 
a yet unchristianized soul, of a yet unpro- 
vided eternity. 

Some of you may have read, in the 
life of the celebrated Whitfield, of the 
well-known attempt that he made at one 
of the great London fairs, when, amid 
all the fantastic and grotesque erections 
of such an occasion, he contrived to in- 
troduce a pulpit ; and, braving the whole 
uproar of riot and ridicule excited by his 
appearance, actually preached for days 
together to the assembled multitude.— 
We know not, particularly, what was 
the subject of his addresses. But sure 
we are, that there was a something in 
them of far more comprehensive import, 
than that of denouncing with intemperate 
and untimely zeal as a gross abomina- 
tion, the scenes of madness and merri- 
ment and festivity wherewith he was 
surrounded. He went there charged 
with the gospel of Jesus Christ ; and his 
errand was not to put down one of the 
modifications of worldiness, but all world- 
lmess. And if, on the strength of the 
great and essential truths of Christianity, 


ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. 


| sons of all this mighty multitude. 





[SERM, 


he gained but twenty converts from 
darkness to light, he did a higher achieve- 
ment, than if, without Christianizing one, 
he had dispersed the assemblage of 
twenty thousand—frightened by his me 
naces, but not led by the power of his 
ministrations to that following of the 
Lord fully on earth, which terminates in 
His approval of them at the judgment- 
seat, and their welcome to His everlast- 
ing habitations. He did, it is said, as the 
reward of his noble intrepidity, secure a 
goodly number of converts on that occa- 
sion. He did not break up the fair, for 
it is still upholden; but he did a great 
deal better, he gathered out of it a har- 
vest for eternity. He did more by the 
conquest he made over a few hearts, 
than if he had only put to flight the per- 
The 
sons and daughters whom he turned unto 
righteousness, he withdrew from their 
former amusements, not by a movement 
of superstitious fear, but by a high move- 
ment of affection and principle—their fa- 
vourite haunting-place having now be- 
come the house of prayer—their best-loy- 
ed resort the companionship of the saints 

the conventicles of praise and piety. 

It would need more than the nerve 
and the intrepidity of a Whitfield, tc 
force a sermon into any of those places 
of public amusement which we have had 
occasion to specify in the course of our 
present argument. The thing is impos- 
sible, and could not be tolerated. But 
the fact is undoubted, both of the sons 
and daughters of this world’s gaiety, that, 
among the other sportive caprices which 
fashion has been known to indulge in, 
she sometimes sends her votaries to 
church; and varies by a sermon on the 
Sabbath, the giddy round of her week- 
day entertainments. And should any of 
her enamoured followers be now listen- 
ing, we would have them to know, that 
it is not at present with any one of those 
entertainments that we are now holding 
controversy. But we are charged with 
a controversy of import far more tremen- 
dous. Our impeachment of them is, be- 
cause of their ungodliness. Our direct 
affirmation, and let them carry it to their 
consciences and try it there, is, that they 
live without God in the world ; that, to 
the purpose of any practical influence on 
their hearts and on their habits, He is 


a paeiceeinions + 4 = 


xi] 


ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. : OF 


not in all their thoughts ; and that in the | eousness can alone settle all your. defi- 


whirl of time’s gratitications and of time’s | ciencies. 


concerns, they have buried all effective 
consideration of eternity. We say that 
the element in which they live and move 
and have their being, is an element of 
earthliness—which, seeing that it is really 
in God that they live and move and have 
their being, is tantamount to the element 
of a wilful and rebellious atheism. We 
would warn them, that, through that 
pleasing atmosphere of deceit by which 
they are encompassed, the eye of Him 
whoa sitteth on the throne of Heaven, 
now looketh with an eye of clear and 
penetrating intelligence ; and beholds in 
them so many imperishable creatures, 
who forgetful of their high destination, 
are pursuing the follies and the frivolities 
of a short-lived day to the ruin of their 
souls. And, it is not upon this one folly, 
or upon that other frivolity, that we 
would enter our protest against them ; 
but, pointing direct to the citadel of their 
hearts, garrisoned to very fulness with 
no other than earthly desires, we would 
call their parties of pleasure and of pub- 
lic amusement, not so much the acts as 
the insignia of their rebellion—as indica- 
tions of the state of an inner man that 
had deeply revolted against God. It is 
to heal this mighty breach that the gos- 
pel is declared to them—not to achieve a 
few circumstantial reformations in their 
history, but wholly to regenerate their 
hearts ; and from the habit of those who 
mind earthly things, so to make all old 
things pass away, and all things to be- 
come new, as that their conversation shall 


_.be in Heaven, and their treasure there.— 


Be first Christians, and then we may sat- 
isfy your curiosity about the lawfulness 
or the unlawfulness of theatres. Give 
up the love of the world for the love of 
God, and then may we say in how far 
this world might be used without abus- 
ing it. Let the balance be fairly struck 
between time and eternity ; and after this 
mighty calculation is over, then may we 
have heart and leisure for pettier calcula- 
tions, and say what of time may be given 
to recreation, and what of it to those sol- 
emn exercises which have a direct bear- 


ing on eternity. Consider your ways.— 


Try your hearts by the standard of God’s 

spiritual law. Look to Christ as the Me- 

diator, who, by His sacrifice and right- 
13 | 





Turn from folly and iniquity 
unto Him, and He will usher you unto 
the ways of pleasantness and the paths of 
peace, 

But it is now time to have done with 
this long excursion, among the details 
and the difficulties of a casuistry, by 
which the Christian mind has oft been 
exercised. For, let it never be forgotten, 
that a heart with rightly-set affections 
and desires is after all the best of casuists. 
If the heart in its various regards be-as it 
ought, this is our securest guarantee that 
the history in its various manifestations 
will be as it ought. The man who is 
stationed at the fountain, and whose busi- 
ness is to keep it in living play, may 
abandon it for a time to clear and trace 
out through their proper windings the 
channels by which the water ought to 
run. But it is possible that while he 
tarries at this employment, the fountain 
may run dry—and of what avail are all 
his conduits, and all his lines of accurate 
and well-drawn conveyance, if there be 
nothing, to flow through them? It is 
quite obvious that his main and impor- 
tant office is to feed and stimulate the 
fountain—that there his presence is most 
frequently, and most urgently required 
—that it is the post from which he ought 
never to prolong his absence beyond the 
rigid necessities of the case—and that if 
for the perfection of the whole apparatus, 
it be at any time expedient that he should 
move away to its subordinate parts, or 
even its more distant extremities, it 1s in- 
dispensable to the whole use and purpose 
of the apparatus, that he ever and anon 
reiterate on the well-spring, where the 
whole being and activity of the opera- 
tion are upholden. And how much 
more true is this, if in fact the impetus of 
the waters shall force a right descent and 
direction for themselves ; if, by the might 
of their own currency, they can wear a 
deep channel, and clear away all the ob- 
stacles to their progress; if without arti- 
ficial guidance, they can spontaneously, 
and by the pure weight of their own na- 
tive momentum, find their own way to 
their best and their fittest destination. 

Now, we must not forget, while linger- 
ing among the turns and the windings of 
Christian casuistry, that there is a place 
whence the impulse may proceed of 


98 


strength enough to overbear its difficul- 
ties, and to force a way through all its 
dark and ambiguous passages—that the 
new-born desire of a Christianized heart 
is worth the catalogue of a thousand so- 
lutions to a thousand perplexities—that 
the best way of restoring to light and to 
liberty the conscience of man, is to en- 
throne love in his bosom—and that in 
willing discipleship to this gentlest, yet 
most persuasive of masters, will every 
new ereature find the best and readiest 
outlet from all the bewilderments that 
meet him in his progress, through this 
great labyrinth of our earthly pilgrimage. 
Give us but once a taste for sacredness— 
and we need scarcely speak on the de- 
tails of sabbath observation to him who 
already loves that hallowed day, to whom 
all its exercises are sweet, and all its op- 
portunities are precious. Give usa heart 
set on the things that are above; and 
what calls for warning against the amuse- 
ments of the world, the man who in the 
midst of higher and better engagements 
feels their utter insipidity 2 Or gives us 
an affection for God in Heaven, or for 
the likeness of God in those who are 
under a process of renovation to His; 
image upon earth—and we are already 
anticipated in all our dissuasions against 
a preference for this world’s companion- 
ship, or an indiscriminate converse with 
its festive and fashionable societies. Ame- 
rica, said Lord Chatham, must be con- 
quered in Germany. ‘The way to subor- 
dinate the human history, is to obtain 
possession of the human heart—and bet- 
ter than this continued skirmishing among 
the details and outposts of casuistry, would 
it be to ply with the right engine, that 
central and commanding fortress, which 
looks down with imperial sway over the 
whole territory of this extended warfare. 
So that, after all, we may have lingered 
for too many sabbaths on those details of 


ON CHRISTIAN 


CASUISTRY, [SERM. 
which the single principle cf love in the 
heart might have given the entire mas. 
tery. Only let this fountain be replen- 
ished with sacred affection, and there is 
no fear, it may well be thought, of the 
uniform sacredness that will emanate 
therefrom on all the diversities of human 
conduct and experience. ‘T’o this object, 
then, ought the main force of every Chris- 
tian teacher be directed—and could he 
only enlist the will of his hearers on the 
side of God, then may we be sure, that 
though he should trace in description of 
all the varieties of their outward way, it 
will mainly and substantially be a way 
of godliness. 

And we trust that this observation will 
serve as another argument, for the mighty 
importance of our much and urgently 
insisting on the fundamental articles of 
Christianity. The great achievement is 
to possess your hearts with the love of 
the gospel, and this can only be done by 
possessing your understanding with the 
truths of the gospel. We know not how 
to win your regards to God, but by re- 
presenting Him as God in Christ recon- 
ciling the world. We know not how 
He can become the objec: of your tender 
ness, but by His ceasing to become the 
object of your terror. We know not how 
your fond affection to Him can be made 
to arise, but by your fearful apprehensions 
of Him being made to subside. In other 
words, the patent way of finding access 
for love into your bosoms, is to find access 
for faith—and could we only obtain cre- 
dit for the message of peace with God, _ 
through the blood of a satisfyimg atone- 
ment, then, by the moving forces of gra- 
titude and good will should we reach a 
far more effective mastery over all the 
details of the Christian life, than all the 
skill of cunning men, all the wisdom of 
learned moral artificers could possibly 
obtain for us. 


pious or prudentia. observation, over; : 


OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 


SERMON XIII. 
Of the Flesh and the Spirit. 


“ For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the spiri* 
shail of the spirit reap life everlasting.” —GaLaTIaNs vi. 8 


_ Tue term “ flesh” has obtained a wider 
signification than it previously had ; and, 
corresponding to this, the phrase of our 
text, “the desires of the flesh” has ob- 
tained a proportionally wider range of 
application. ‘These desires, in fact em- 
brace one and all of the enjoyments which 
are competent to the natural man while 
he is in the body. Had the species re- 
mained innocent, there would have been 
nothing, either in these desires or enjoy- 
ments, that would have either thwarted 
the will of God, or carried any forgetful- 
ness or disinclination towards God along 
with them. But as the matter actually 
stands, it is far otherwise. With the de- 
sire that we have for what is agreeable, 
there mingles no desire and no liking 
towards God. With the enjoyment that 
we have in it, there mingles no remem- 
brance and no pleasure in God. The 
thing is desired for itself; in itself the 
heart rests, and terminates, and has full 
complacency ; and the enjoyment is in 
every way as much detached from the 
thought of God, as if the belief of God 
had no place in his creed, or as if God 
Himself had no place in creation. Now 
this is not merely true of the grosser ap- 
petites of nature. It is true of every ap- 
petite which has for its object something 
separate from God; of every appetite 
which points to any one thing that the 
world has to offer, while God is not re- 
cognised as the giver of it, or as having 
that superior claim upon our affections 
which the giver has over the gift; of 
every appetite in the prosecution of which 
and the indulgence of which, the mind 
may all the while be away from the con- 
sideration of God. Now this applies, not 
merely to the desires of the epicure, and 
of the voluptuary. It belongs as essen- 
tially to all the other desires of unre- 
newed nature. There may be as little 
of God, for example, in the delights of 
- diteratne, as there is in the delights of 


sensuality. If it be true that it is He 
alone who doeth the will of God that en- 
dureth for ever, the one may be as little 
connected as the other with the eternai 
hfe of our text. Both may be equally 
fleeting in their duration ; and both may 
pass away with the vapour of our present 
life, when it passcth away. ‘They may 
end when the body ends; and thus it is, 
that many generous as well as many 
grovelling desires, that the propensity of 
the heart to power and glory or to the 
objects of lofty ambition, may, as well as 
the lowest propensities of our animal na- 
ture, come under the brief but compre- 
hensive description of “ the desires of the 
flesh.” 

Recollect then that in this extended 
sense, we employ the term flesh through- 
out the whole of our discourse. All the 
desires which it 1s competent for a man 
to feel, who has no care, and takes no 
interest about the things of God or of 
another world, are the desires of the flesh. 
All the enjoyments of which man is ca- 
pable, apart either from the duties or the 
delights of religion, are the enjoyments 
of the flesh. They may or they may not 
be the enjoyments of a shameless and 
abandoned profligacy. The line of de 
marcation between flesh and spirit, is not 
that by which the dissipations of life are 
separated from its decencies—but that by 
which all the desire that we have towards 
the enjoyments of our present life, in 
sense and in the creature, but apart from 
God, is separated from the desire that we 
have towards the enjoyments of the spirit- 
ual life with God in Heaven. A man 
may be wholly occupied by the former 
desire, and be wholly devoid of the latter 
—in which case he is of the flesh and 
not of the spirit; or, to make use still 
more of the phraseology of scripture, he 
is carnal and not spiritual; or hé walks 
by sight, and not by faith; or he is one 
of the children of this world, and not 


i100 


one of the children of light; or, finally, 
he minds earthly things, and neither his 
heart nor his conversation is in Heaven. 
Now to answer this description of charac- 
ter, it is not necessary, that he should be 
immersed in vice and in voluptuousness. 
He may recoil from these ; and yet the- 
world in some other of its varieties may 
have the entire mastery of his affections, 
and it be the alone theatre of his hopes 
and his interests and his wishes. What 
the earthly thing is which engrosses him, 
we may not be able to specify; and yet 
it may be very sure that earthly things 
are all which he minds, and that to the 
pleasure and the pursuit of them he is 
wholly given over. In the judgment of 
an earthborn morality he may not be at 
all criminal; and yet, in his tastes and 
tendencies and practical habits, he may 
be altogether carnal. 

The next thing which requires to be 


understood, is what is meant by “ sow- ! 
Let it be observed | 


ing to the flesh.” 
then, that the act of indulging its desires 
is one thing, and that the act of provid- 
ing for the indulgence of them 1s ano- 
ther. When a man, on the impulse of 
sudden provocation, wreaks his resent- 
ful feelings upon the neighbour who has 
offended him, he is not at that time pre- 
paring for the indulgence of a carnal 
feeling ; but actually mdulging it. He 
is not at that time sowing, but reaping, 
such as it is, a harvest of gratification. 
But when, instead of tasting the sweets 
of revenge, he is employed in devising 
the measures of revenge, and taking 
counsel with the view of putting some 
scheme of it into operation—he is no 
doubt stimulated throughout this process, 
by the desire of retaliation’; but it is not 
until the process has reached its accom- 
plishment, that the desire is satisfied. It 
is thus that the sowing and the reaping 
may be distinguished from one another. 
We are busied with the one, when bu- 
sied with the preparatory steps towards 
some consummation which we are aim- 
ing at; and we obtain the other in the 
act of consummation. 

This distinction may serve to assist 
our judgment, in estimating the ungodli- 
ness of certain characters. The rambling 
voluptuary, who is carried along by 
every impulse, and all whose powers of 
mental discipline are so enfeebled that he 


OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 


[SERM. 


has become the slave of every propen- 
sity, lives in the perpetual harvest of cri- 
minal gratification. If with him the 
voice of conscience be ever heard, amid 
the uproar of those passions which war 
against the soul, it only serves to darken 
his intervals of vice—when, on the as- 
sault of the next temptation, and the com- 
ing round of the next opportunity, it is 
again deafened and overborne as before, 
amid the mirth and the riot and the reck- 
lessness of profligate companionship. It 
is not to sucha man that we should look 
as our best example of one who sows. 
We should rather look to another who is 
equally immersed in vice, but with more 
of steadfastness and self-command in the 
prosecution of it—who can bring intelli- 
gence and cool deliberation to bear upon 
its objects—who can patiently take his 
stand; and calculate upon his advan- 
tages; and, after the disguise and prepa- 
ration of many months, can obtain the 
gratification of an unhallowed triumph 
over some victim of artifice. To the eye 
of the world, and with the general de - 
cency of his regulated habits, he may 
have a more seemly character than the 
unbridled debauchee. But if to disobey 
conscience, when scarcely heard amid 
the ravings of a tempest, be an humbler 
attainment in the school of impiety, than 
to stifle conscience in the hour of stillness 
and circumspection—if it be not so hardy 
a resistance to the voice of duty, when she 
calls unheeded along with a crowd of 
boisterous assailants, as when, with the 
cool and collected energies of a mind at 
leisure, she is firmly bidden to the door. 
—then, though both these wretched 
aliens from God be surely posting to the 
place of condemnation, if there be de- 
grees of punishment in hell, even as 
there are degrees of glory and enjoy- 
ment in heaven, we leave the question 
with yourselves, whether he in the pre- 
sent instance who has most been occupied 
in sowing, or he who has most been oc- 
cupied in reaping, shall be made to in- 
herit the deepest curse, or have the heay- 
lest vengeance laid upon him. 

But it is more useful still, to complete 
this distinction in the walks of reputable 
life; and for this purpose, we may notice 
a very frequent exhibition of it among 
the members of a prosperous family. A 
daughter, whose whole delight is m her 


= 


seep baipteumease semen. 


Leg 


ples 


XII] 


rapid transitions from one scene of ex- 
pensive brilliancy to another—who sus- 
tains the delirium of her spirits among 
the visits and the excursions, and the par- 
ties of gaiety, which fashion has invented 
for the entertamment of its unthinking 
generations—who dissipates every care, 
and fills up every hour, with the raptures 
of hope or the raptures of enjoyment, 
among the frivolities and fascinations of 
her volatile society—She leads a life, 
than: which nothing can be imagined 
more opposite to a life of preparation for 
the coming judgment or the coming eter- 
nity. Yet she reaps rather than sows. 
It lies with another to gather the money 
which purchaseth all things, and with 
her to taste the fruits of the purchase. It 
is the father who sows. It is he who 
sits in busy and brooding anxiety over 
his manifold speculations—wrinkled per- 
haps with care, and sobered by years into 
an utter distaste for the spler.dours and 
insignificancies of fashionable life. He 
provides the elements of all this expendi- 
ture, yet in the expenditure itself ma 

have no enjoyment whatever. On all 
his habits there may be imprinted one 
unvaried character of regularity—punc- 
tual in hours, and temperate in enjoy- 
ments, and exemplary in all the mercan- 
tile virtues, and with no rambling desire 
whatever beyond the threshold of his 
counting-house, and engrossed with no- 
thing so much as with the snug pros- 
perity of its operations. 

In the business of gain, there is often 
the ruffing of an occasional breeze; and 
the one who so employed is, to make use 
of a Bible expression, “sowing the wind.” 
In the business of expenditure there is 
often the fury and agitation of a tempest ; 
and the other who is so employed is, to 
make use of another Bible expression, 
“reaping the whirlwind.” The habit 
of both is alike a habit of ungodliness. 
Giddy and unthinking in the latter ; but 
certainly not more hopeless, than the 
settled ungodliness of the former—where 
system, and perseverance, and the delib- 
erate application of the whole heart and 
the whole understanding, are given to the 
interests of the world—where every 
thought of seriousness about the soul, in- 
stead of being lost for a time in the whirl 
of intoxicating variety, is calmly and reso- 
lutely dispossessed by thoughts of equal 


OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 


10), 


seriousness about a provision for the 
perishable body—where wealth has be- 
come the chosen and adopted divinity of 
the whole life ; and, in place of the God 
who endureth for ever, every care and 
every calculation are directed toa portion, 
frail as our earthly tabernacles, and fleet- 
ing as the vapour that soon passeth away. 

But there is still another word that 
needs explanation. ‘The term corruption 
in this passage is expressive, not of moral 
worthlessness as it frequently is, but 
of decay or expiration. ‘The meaning of 
it here is in precise contrast to that of the 
term incorruption, in the place where it 
is said that this corruptible shall put on 
incorruption, and this mortal shall put on 
immortality. Where it stands in this 
verse, it is expressive, not of a moral pro- 
perty, but of a physical one. The cor- 
ruption that is spoken of in the text, is 
simply opposed to the eternal life that is 
spoken of in the text. It is not here 
designed to affirm the wrongness of any 
carnal pursuit, but the instability of its 
objects. We are only translating the 
text into other language, when we say 
that all the harvest which is reaped 
by him who soweth unto the flesh cometh 
to an end—whereas he who soweth 
to the spirit will reap a harvest of plea- 
sures which shall be for evermore. Sea 
that the lesson here is quite the same with 
that of the apostle John, “ The world 
passeth away, and the lust thereof, but 
he that doeth the will of God abideth for 
ever.” 

Now that we have finished these vari- 
ous explanations, the first lesson which 
we urge from the text, is the vanity of this 
world’s ambition. We are elsewhere 
told in plainer language, not to love the 
world, neither the things that are in the 
world. To gratify our affection for these 
things, is to reap of the flesh, all which 
the flesh, even in its most extended sense, 
has to bestow upon us. To provideagain 
for this gratification, is to sow unto the 
flesh. ‘I'he man sows, when, under the 
impulse of a desire after earthly things, 
he plies and prosecutes his measures for 
the attainment of them. He reaps when 
he does attain. Were it not for a strange 
anomaly in the moral nature of man, this 
distinction could not have been better ex 
emplified, than by him who first labours 
with the whole heart and strenuousness 


102 


of his soul, after the money which pur- 
chaseth the objects of this world’s eratifi- 
cation ; and then gives himself up to the 
harvest of indulgence. But what mars 
and confounds the distinction in this in- 
stance is, that, when man devotes himself 
to the acquisition of that money which 
purchaseth all things, it is not always 
with the view of purchasing. Wealth is 
often prosecuted without that view. An 
independent charm is annexed to the 
bare possession of it. Apart altogether 
from its power of command over the 
enjoyments of life, it has become with 
many an object in itself of the most pas- 
sionate and intense ambition. All the 
pleasure of the chase is keenly felt in 
the pursuit of it, and all the triumph ofa 
victory as keenly felt in the attainment of 
it; and this without any regard. to that 
harvest of subsequent enjoyment, into 
which it has the power of ushering its 
successful votaries. It is thus, that, 
although the mere shadow and represen- 
tative of enjoyment, it has at length infat- 
uated its worshippers into a higher relish 
for itself, than for all the enjoyments 
of which it is the minister—so that, 
instead of a handmaid to the gratification 
of our other appetites, itself has become 
with many the object of an appetite more 
domineering than them all; and wealth 
apart from all its uses and subserviencies, 
now stands to their imagination in the 
place of a mighty and dispensing sove- 
reign, to whom they render the devotion 
and the drudgery of all their services. 
In those cases, however, where wealth 
is the terminating object, there is still the 
process of sowing—even that process of 
diligence and of busy devisings, by 
which the schemes of this earthly ambi- 
tion are carried on. Only the harvest, 
instead of consisting in any ulterior things 
which wealth can purchase, consists in the 
mere acquisition of the wealth itself. In 
the walks of merchandise, were we to 
look to the minds and the motives of its 
most aspiring candidates, would we often 
see that it was not what comes after the 
wealth, but the wealth itself which both 
set them agoing and keeps them agoing. 
They may be sowing, not unto the lust of 
the flesh, not unto the lust of the eye, not 
unto the pride of life, all of which are 
opposite to the love of the Father. But 
still they are sowing; and to that, too, 


OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 


[SERM, 


the love of which is equally opposite 
to the love of the Father. ‘They who 
are seeking treasure for themselves, in- 
stead of seeking to be rich towards God, 
are in fact sowing unto the flesh, for 
they are sowing unto that which termi- 
nates with the body—They are sowing 
unto that which is altogether corrupt— 
understanding by this term altogether 
transitory. ‘They are sowing unto that 
on which death, in a few little years, 
will put its impressive mockery. They 
are rearing their chief good on a founda- 
tion that is perishable. They are labour- 
ing for one portion only, which will 
speedily be wrested from them by the 
gripe of a destroyer—who will leave 
them without a portion, and without an 
inheritance for ever. 

They are labouring for a part in this 
world’s substance, and in the possession 
of it, verily they have their reward. But, 
in regard to the substance which endur- 
eth, as for it they have never laboured, so 
it they never will acquire. They have 
sought to be arrayed in perishable glory, 
and perhaps will find a little hour of 
magnificence on earth, ere they bid their 
everlasting adieu to its infatuations. But 
that hour will soon come to its termina- 
tion; and Death may leave all the pos- 
sessions untouched, but he will lay his 
rude and resistless hand upon the pos- 
sessor. The house may stand in castel- 
lated pride for many generations, and the 
domain may smile for ages in undimin- 
ished beauty ; but in less, perhaps, than 
half a generation, death will shoot his 
unbidden way to the inner apartment, 
and, without spoiling the lord of his pro- 
perty, he will spoil the property of its 
lord. It is not his way to tear the parch- 
ments, and the rights of investiture from 
the hand of their proprietor ; but he para- 
lyzes and unlocks the hand, and they fall 
like useless and forgotten things away 
from it. It is thus that Death smiles in 
ghastly contempt on all human ageran- 
dizement. He meddles not with the 
things that are occupied, but he lays hold 
of the occupier; and this to him is as 
entire a deprivation, as if he trampled all. 
that belonged to him into powder. He 
does not seize upon the wealth, but he lays 
his arrest upon the owner. He forces 
away his body to the grave, where it moul- 
ders into dust; and, in turning the soul 





xu] . 


out of its warm and well-loved tenement, 
he turns it adrift on the cheerless waste 
of a desolate and neglected Eternity. 
We are not told here that it is wrong 
to sow unto the flesh. This may be, 
this is a doctrine of the Bible; but it is 
not the doctrine of this particular verse. 
It does not pronounce on the criminality 
of the pursuit—but just on the evanes- 
cence of its objects. It simply tells us, 
that the good attained by sowing unto 
the flesh is temporal; and to this the 
whole experience of man bears testimony. 
He cannot look upon general history, 
without perceiving the rapid movement 
of one generation after another. He 
cannot live long in the world, without 
perceiving the fall of acquaintances upon 
every side of him. He cannot have a 
eircle of relatives around him, without 
the lesson of death being brought home 
to his feelings, by the touching incidents 
of his own domestic history. Should he 
still persist in associating either durability 
or magnitude with his earthly interests, 
—this may prove a moral or an intellec- 
tual derangement in himself; but it proves 
nothing against the affirmation, that, in 
sowing unto the flesh, he will of the flesh 
reap only corruption. As he grows older 
in years, he may grow more inveterate 
in delusion. As he draws towards the 
termination of his earthly existence, he 
may cling with more intense affection to 
its vanities. As the hour of his eternal 
separation from the world approaches, 
he may grow in the estimation of its 
value; and adhere more tenaciously to 
all its objects, and to all its interests. 
This proves him to be the child of infa- 
tuation ; but against the truth of the Bible, 
it proves nothing. It may bespeak the 
virulence of some great spiritual disease, 
which hath overspread our species. It 
may demonstrate, that, in reference to a 
great and awfully momentous truth, we 
labour under all the obstinacy of an habi- 
tual blindness. But the truth itself re- 
mains unshaken ; and on every indivi- 
dual who is born into the world, it will 
be most surely and most speedily realized. 
The second lesson, founded on these 
explanations of our text, that we would 
propose, is the unprovidedness of all 
those men for cternity, whose affections 
are settled upon the world, and who pos- 
sess not one wish or one practical in- 


OF THE FLESIL AND THE SPIRIT. 


ee ee SSeS 


103 


terest beyond the limits of its sensible 
horizon. That, indeed, is a meagre 
theology which would look upon the 
outcasts of human society, as the only 
outcasts from Heaven ; and which would 
represent the path that leadeth unto spi- 
ritual and everlasting life, to be so gentle 
and so accessible that few do miss it, in- 
stead of representing it as that arduous 
and narrow path, of which our Saviour 
hath said that there be few who find it. 
It is a woeful delusion, and we fear the 
undoing of many an immortal spirit, that 
nought will shut us out of Paradise, but 
such literal and flagrant offences against 
the law of rectitude, as would degrade 
us beneath the average character of those 
decent and respectable and neighbour- 
like families, by whom we are encom- 
passed ; and that if we but acquit our- 
selves with tolerable fairness upon earth, 
we are fit for being translated when we 
die, among the choirs and the companies 
of the celestial. Now, it is true, that we 
may stand exempted from all gross and 
outrageous delinquency. We may fulfil 
all the honesties of social intercourse. 
We may even have more than the aver- 
age share of its humanities. The cor- 
dialities of domestic affection may, by the 
mechanism of our sentient nature, flow 
through our bosoms, in a stream as warm 
and as kindly as does the blood that cir- 
culates through our veins. And to many 
of the graces of private life, there may be 
added the activities of public life and of 
patriotism—the pulse of high and hon- 
ourable feeling—the blush of unviolated 
delicacy—the ingenuousness of nature's 
truth—the sensibilities of nature’s tender- 
ness. And withal, there may be a taste 
most finely and feelingly alive, if not to 
those spiritual beauties which irradiate 
the character of the Godhead, at least to 
those sensible beauties wherewith the 
face of our goodly creation hath been 
decked so profusely by his hand; and 
there may be science, and imagination, 
and towering intellect, and sublime 
thoughts of truth and of the universe, 
and ail the virtues which the happiest 
constitution can engender, and all the phi- 
losophy which loftiest genius can achieve. 

Now we would put it to your own 
sense and experience of our common na- 
ture, if you think it impossible, that a 
man so gifted shall breathe the element 


104 


of itreligion ; that, from morning to night, 
the God, amid the glories of whose work- 
manship he all the day rejoices, shall be 


to him like an unknown or a forgotten 
thing ; 


gion in which he dwells, he should cast 
not one look beyond the death to which 
his footsteps are carrying him, should 
heave not one aspiration through the illu- 
minated concave that is above his head ; 
and that thus the Being, who hath graced 
and invested humanity with all that so 
proudly or so pleasingly adorns it, should 
be habitually and wholly disregarded by 
him, whom the hand of the Almighty 
Sovereign hath called forth, and exalted 
into the noblest of its specimens. And 
if indeed a creature so accomplished, 
might nevertheless live and die in un- 
godliness, then let us not be deceived into 
fatal security, by the virtues of an average 
and every-day world. ‘They one and all 
of them may consist with alienation from 
God ; and utter strangers to the spirit, or 
to the things of that spiritual economy 
which He has instituted, they may, 
throughout all their rounds of business 
or companionship or pleasure, be sowing 
only unto the flesh, and making this 
earth, this perishable earth, the scene of 
all their joys and of all their expectations. 
We charge them not with crime—yet, if 
go immersed in earthliness as to have lost 
all practical sensibility to God, we must 
refuse their Christianity. The whole 
drift and tendency of their affections are 
to the things which are beneath. The 
effort, the anxiety, the perpetual longing 
of their hearts, are all toward the accom- 
modations and the interests of time. They 
are carnally minded, which is death. 
They sow unto the flesh, and of the flesh 
they shall reap corruption. 

And this is the consummation of their 
present being, not because they have lived 
either in profane or in profligate wick- 
ednéss, but simply because they have 
lived without God—because they have 
made earth their resting-place ; and, alto- 
gether pleased with what is perishable, 
the general habit of their souls has mark- 
ed them to be citizens of earth and not 
of heaven—with this world as the alone 
repository of their interests and hopes, 
without one pilgrim sigh, and far less 
one pilgrim step, towards the land of 


OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 


that satisfied, and in full occupa- 
tion with the business of the peopled re- 


(SERM, 


Eternity. Were you to put it to their 
choice, whether, if all was prosperous 
here, it was not here that they would 
like to live for ever—it might bring the 
state of their affections to the test, and de- 
cide the question of their being carnal or 
spiritual men. Let the proposal be made, 
that, with health and fortune and friend- 
ship, and the bloom of perpetual youth, 
and the blessings of Joyous companion- 
ship, and an affectionate family, there — 
should withal be the elixir of immortality 
poured into your cup; and on the face 
of this goodly world, so full of sweets 
and of sunshine, you should be permitted 
to expatiate for ever. ‘Tell me, if, on 
these terms, you would not cleave with 
fondest tenacity to your present habita- 
tion; and be willing to live all recklessly 
as heretofore of the God that upholds 
you? Would you not be glad to take 
everlasting leave of your Maker; and, 
could you only be spared the encounter 
of that hideous death which disembodies 
the soul and conveys it to the land of 
spectres, would you not consent far rather 
to sojourn and to spend your eternity in 
this more congenial land? In other 
words, would you not prefer that God 
and you should be everlastingly quit of 
each other—rather than be wrested from 
your tenements of clay ; and deprived of 
your footing on that territory, where 
alone those earthly enjoyments are to be 
found, that are suited to your earthly na- 
ture? Tell me if you could not forego 
even heaven and all its psalmody to be 
fairly let alone; and, for the sake of a 
lasting and undisturbed mheritance in 
this smiling world, would you not agree 
that God should withdraw Himself in 
eternal oblivion from your thoughts, and 
that you should be eternal outcasts from 
God’s spiritual family ? 

You may plead in apology, that, m 
choosing for earth rather than heaven, 
you just make the universal choice of 
nature; but it only proves the truth of 
this great Bible position—that Nature is 
in a state of exile from God—and that 
there is indeed a wide disruption between 
the planet on which we dwell, and the 
rest of God’s unfallen creation. It only 
proves that you are yet of the flesh and 
not of the spirit; and that you have not 
made that mighty transition by which the 
affections are carried upward from the 


XIT.] 


_dust of this perishable world, to that 
upper sanctuary where Christ sitteth at 
the right hand of God, and where God 
sitteth on a throne that is at once a throne 
of grace and of righteousness. Be assur- 
ed if so, that you are not in a state which 
it will do to die in. ‘There will be no 
such earth as the one that we inhabit— 
after the present economy is dissolved ; 
and succeeded by a heaven where all is 
sacredness and seraphic ecstasy, and a 
‘hell where all is the defiance and the 
despe ation of rooted, resolved, and impla- 
cable ungodliness. Such a middle re- 
gion as the one we at present occupy, 
where the creature enjoys himself amid 
the gifts, and cares not for the giver, can- 
not long be tolerated. It is an anomaly 
on the face of creation, and will as such 
be swept away. And meanwhile the 
processes of our text are those which con- 
nect your doings here, with one or other 
of the two destinies hereafter. “If you 
sow unto the flesh you will of the flesh 
reap corruption. If you sow unto the 
spirit you will of the spirit reap life ever- 
lasting.” 

We have hitherto used the term cor 
ruption in the sense it has in the text— 
that is the property of being perishable 
and so transitory ; and, ere we conclude 
im a few words with the common sense 
of the term as denoting the moral pro- 
perty of being criminal or faulty, let us 
just make one remark which at present 
we cannot afford to expatiate on. It is 
this—that the man who soweth unto the 
flesh, or in other words labours to secure 
some earthly enjoyment, that he should 
reap only corruption, or reap only that 
which at length passes away from him 
and ceases any longer to be—why this 
is in perfect keeping with all the analo- 
gies of nature and human life. It is the 
pare result of the course on which he 

ath entered. It is in conformity with 
all that takes place in other paths of ac- 
tivity and exertion—where it is found 
that as is the aim so is the accomplish- 
ment. The schoolboy seeks for amuse- 
ment, and he finds it—he gets the one 
thing his heart is set upon, but not anoth- 
er thing—he gets not the acquisition of a 
fortune for example. ‘The daughter of 
many graces and many accomplishments 
seeks for distinction in the circle of fash- 
ion, and that may be realised ; but you 

14 


OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 


105 


would never look, for the result of such 
an aim or such an enterprise, to distinc- 
tion in the circle of politics. ‘The citizen 
looks forward in perspective, and labours 
in the wall of busy merchandise, for the 
sum which he thinks will satiate the am- 
bition of his nature—this he may reach, 
but not surely an eminence of literary 
fame. And so of every other landing- 
place to every other path of exertion.— 
As is the seeking so is the finding. The 
man of business does not get a name in 
philosophy. ‘The man of letters does not 
get to the pinnacle of affluence. The 
man of victory in war, does not obtain 
the glory which is achieved by the man 
of discovery in science. And so, to use a 
designation comprehensive of them all, 
the man of the world realises some one 
or other of the world’s objects; but he 
does not realise the things or the interests 
of heaven. Verily he hath his reward. 
He gets what he sought for, and has no 
right to complain if he do not get what 
he never sought for. He reaches the 
appropriate termination of his path— 
Time and Eternity are both set before 
him; he made choice of time, and he 
hath sped accordingly. But his eternity 
is a blank; and it were in violation of 
all the analogies of human experience if 
it were otherwise. It is thus, if we had 
time to illustrate the lesson a little farther, 
that a flood of light may be thrown upon 
the position that—not because a man’s 
actions are criminal, but simply because 
his affections are earthly—not because in 
the deeds of his hand there has been 
ought of the violent but because in the 
desires of his heart there has been nought 
of the spiritual—not because he hath 
done that which should disgrace him in 
this world of sinners which is soon to 
pass away, but simply because he hath 
neither sought after a place nor laboured 
in the work of preparation for that world 
of saints which is to remain in brightness 
for ever.—On these grounds alone, and 
without the imputation of any notorious 
delinquency at all, there is many a most 
respectable citizen, who, viewed in refer- 
ence to his capacity as an immortal crea- 
ture, lives all his days in a state of utter 
negation and nakedness ; and who, when 
overtaken by death, will find himself on 
the margin of an unprovided eternity, 
with nought in its mighty and unexplored 


106 


vastness before him but the dark im- 
agery of desolation and despair. 

But the final issue of such a life as he 
hath spent in the world, is something ad- 
ditional to 2 mere shortness from heaven. 
‘There is fuither included in it the posi- 
tive wretchedness of hell: And ere the 
reason and the conscience can be recon- 
ciled to such a consummation as this, it 
is not enough to make out that he has 
been all along sowing to that which is 
corrupt in the sense of that which is tran- 
sitory ; but that further, he is charge- 
able with that which is corrupt in the 
ense of that which is morally reprehen- 
sible and wrong. The great difficulty 
of a gospel minister lies in convincing of 
this, our amiable and virtuous but withal 
worldly men. Our chief encounter in 
society, is with a meagre and superficial 
imagination of guilt! Men know not 
what they have done, that should land 
them in so frightful a consummation, as 
the hell of the New Testament. They 


understand not how it is, that any sin of | 


theirs should have lighted up those fires 
which are to burn everlastingly. They 
will admit that they have failings; but 
surely nothing commensurate to a ven- 
geance so relentless and so interminable 
as this. ‘here may be some desperadoes 
in wickedness—there may be a few of 
stouter and more stubborn hardihood than 
all their fellows—there may be men of 
fiend-like atrocity, whom the children of 
this world so little resemble, that the 
world at large would shudder at them— 
these may be the befitting inmates of that 
dire and dreadful Pandemonium, where 
the spirits of the accursed dwell. But 
surely the kind and the courteous and 
the companionable men of our own daily 
walk and our own familiar neighbour- 
hood, with whom we exchange the visits 
of hospitality and the smiles of benignity 
and good will—you would not assimilate 
their guilt, with that of the daring out- 
cast, who passes through life in utter 
recklessness of all its duties and of all its 
decencies. ‘I'his cause of the peace which 
men feel about their eternal prospects is 
distinct from the former. It is a juridical 
principle that is quite current among men, 
and lends a mighty reinforcement to the 
apathy of Nature. ‘They are at peace, 
because they do not see that theirs is at 
alla guilt so grievous as to bring down 


OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 








[SERR 


upon it the burden of a grievous condem- 
nation—and so a peace which we fear is 
no peace. There is indeed in all this a 
very complete illusion. For a man to be 
execrated as a monster in society, he must 
have outraged the duties of that relation 
in which he stands to his fellow-men. 
Now of all these he may have acquitted 
himself in a very tolerable way; and 
yet there is another and a distinct rela- 
tion, to which also belong peculiar duties 
of its own, and which he may have al- 
together neglected—we mean the rela- 
tion in which he stands, not to the beings 
of his own species, but to the Being who 
made: him. He may have discharged 
himself of all that he owes to his fellows 
upon earth, and yet have been utterly 
unmindful of what he owes to God in 
heaven. He may have felt the force of 
all those moral and sympathetic affec- 
tions, which bind men together into a 
community below—and yet felt no at- 
traction whatever to Him who is the 
great Parent and Preserver of the hu- 
man family. There might be many 
a close and kindly reciprocation of mu- 
tual esteem, and mutual tenderness, and 
all the virtues of good neighbourhood, 
among ourselves ; and yet the whole of 
this terrestrial society, be in a state of 
utter disruption from Him who is at once 
the source and the centre of the created 
Universe. It is just as if a stray planet 
might retain its cohesion, and its chem- 
istry, and all those laws of motion and 
plastic influences which would continue 
to uphold many of the processes of our 
present terrestrial physics; but which 
loosed from its gravitation to the sun 
would drift waywardly in space, and 
become an outcast from the harmonies 
of the great mundane system. Now 
this is precisely what the Bible affirms 
of the spiritual world. The men of this 
planet have broken off their affinity to 
God. ‘They retain many of their wonted 
affinities for each other; but they have 
made disruption and a wide and general 
departure from God. They have yeta 
terrestrial ethics with the graces and 
moralities of which some are so richly 
adorned, as to shine in beauteous lustre 
before the eye of their fellows; while 
others even in reference to these earth- 
born virtues, are so marred and mutila- 
ted, that they are looked upon by all as 


Xu] 


he objects of a revolting deformity. Of 
the great principle of the cclestial Ethics, 
both may at the same time be alike des- 
titute. It is experimentally true, that the 
man of compassion and the man of cru- 
elty, with hearts so differently affected 
by the sight of distress, may be in the 
same state of practical indifference to- 
wards God. It is the spirit of a sound 
philosophy, as well as of a sound faith, 
to affirm that Humanity, with all her 
complexionai varieties of character be- 
tween one specimen and another, may 


OF THL FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 











107 


ciple, which forms one main ingredient 
of the false and the fatal peace that is so 
general in our world. There is blind- 
ness to the jurisprudence of the upper 
sanctuary, as well as blindness to the fu- 
turities of the unseen state. The two 
together have the effect of a most deadly 
opiate ; nor are we to wonder if our spe- 
cles have been charmed thereby, into so 


| profound a spiritual lethargy.—And thus 


it is, that though the creatures of a fleet- 
ing and fantastic day, we tread on earth 
with as assured footsteps, as if, instead of 


be throughout impregnated with the deep | its shortlived tenants we were to be ever- 
spirit of ungodliness. lastingly its lords. And the laugh, and 

This is the representation of that|the song, and the festive gaiety, and the 
scripture which speaketh to us from| busy schemes of earthliness, all speak a 
heaven; and to this, we believe, that | generation fast locked in the insensibility 
every enlightened conscience upon earth | of spiritual death. Nor do the terrors 
will re-echo. It charges not injustice | of the grave shake this tranquillity—nor 


upon alj. It charges not gross and 
abominable licentiousness upon all. It 
charges not open or scandalous pro- 
faneness upon all. But it charges un- 
godliness upon all. When brought to 
the bar of civil or criminal law, when 
brought to the bar of public opinion, when 
brought tothe bar of social or conventional 
morality amongst men, you may be most 
fully and honourably acquitted. Yet 
when brought to the bar of a higher ju- 
risprudence, there may be laid, and most 
rightfully laid upon you, the burden of 
an overwhelming condemnation. It is 
then, and then only that ungodliness 
stands forth as an article of the indict- 
ment against you. It is then that the 
Being who made you takes up His own 
zause, and appears in support of his 
own controversy. It is then that ques- 
tion is made, not of the claims which 


men have upon you, but of those pe- | 


culiar and transcendental claims which 
God has upon you. It is then that you 
are met with the question—“ What have 
you done unto God?’ In reference to 
the moralities of your human companion- 
ship below, there is perhaps not one 
earthly tribunal before which you might 
not stand in the attitude of proud integ- 
rity. In reference to that transcendental 
morality, which relates the thing that is 
formed to Him who hath formed it— 
there is the overthrow of every preten- 
sion, and man’s boasted righteousness 
melteth utterly away. 

Now it is man’s blindness to this prin- 





do the still more awful terrors of the 
judgment-seat. ‘That day of man’s dis 
solution which is so palpably at hand, 
and which sends before it so many inti- 
mations, fails to disturb him. That day 
of the world’s dissolution, when the 
trumpet shall be sounded, and the men 
of all generations shall awake to the 
high reckonings of eternity, and this 
earth and these Heavens shall be in- 
volved in the ruins of one mighty con- 
flagration, and the wrath that now is sus- 
pended in this season of offered mercy 
shall at length break forth into open 
manifestation on all the sons and daugh- 
ters of ungodliness—this day, which 
when it cometh, will absorb every heart 
in one fearful and overwhelming interest 
—now that it only is to come, and is seen 
through the imagined vista of many suc- 
cessive centuries, has no more effect than 
a dream of poetry. And, whether from 
the dimness of nature’s sight to all the 
futurities of the spiritual world, or from 
its slender apprehension of that guilt 
which in the sacred eye of heaven is so 
enormous—certain it is, that men can 
travel onward both to the death and to 
the judgment, and say peace, peace, when 
there is no peace. 

The awfulness of the first of these 
events, even death, bears in it experimen- 
tal proof to God’s intolerance of sin. If 
He indeed felt our guilt, as little as we 
feel our danger—if His displeasure were 
a thing as slight and as gentle as our 
alarm—why so dreadful a visitation upon 


108 


our species as death ?—a thing unknown 
to angels, and from which the whole of 
sentient nature shrinks as at the ap- 
proach of most unnatural violence. If 
God be as much at peace with the world, 
as the world is at peaceful complacency 
with itself—why keep up so hard and so 
hostile a dispensation against it ?—or if 
sin be of as trivial account in the estima- 
tion of Heaven, as it is in the estimation 
of human society—how should it have 
brought down such a vengeance upon 
earth, as to have smitten it with a plague 
of mortality throughout all its borders ; 
and swept off to the hideousness of the 
grave, all the life and beauty and intelli- 
gence of its successive generations. 


‘That surely is no trifle, which has turned 


this bright and blooming world into a 
vast sepulchral abode for the men of all 
ages. Its moaning death-beds, and its 
weeping families, and its marred and 
broken companionships—these are all 
emphatic testimonies of God’s hatred of 
moral evil; for that sin brought all this 
calamity upon the world, is a principle 
announced to us in scripture—and it is 
the only principle which resolves to us 
the mystery of death. And when the 
same scripture announces that after death 
cometh the judgment—O let us not give 
in to the treacherous imagination ; that 
He who hath made such fell exhibition 
of severity in the one, will in the other 
but manifest and indulge his tenderness. 
But let us be very sure, that, as death is 
to every unrepentant sinner but the be- 
ginning of his sorrows, so judgment 
will be to him as a second death. 

We shall be happy, if, as the fruit of 
these observations, we can convince any 
of you, that, apart from crime, apart 
from literal transgressions of the divine 





OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 


[SERM. 


law, there may be the utmost spiritual 
destitution in the mere earthliness of our 
affections—the most entire unfitness for 
heaven above, simply because our heart’s 
delight and desire are set upon the world 
that is below—an eternity wholly unpro- 
vided, because the pleasures and the pro- 
vision of time are all that we seek and 
all that we care for. There is a juridi- 
cal principle, that nothing will condemn 
us at the bar of our final reckoning, but 
crime; and then that mere carnality, in 
the general sense of the word, is no 
crime. Now it is not a crime in the eye 
of human jurisprudence ; but in the eye 
of the divine jurisprudence it is the most 
enormous of all. It is the preference of 
the creature to the Creator, and will ter- 
minate in the gloom of everlasting depri- 
vation and despair, after that Creation, 
in its present power to engage and to 
gratify, shall have passed away, and we 
shall have to do with the rebuke and 
the resentment of Creation’s Lord who 
endureth for ever. O be persuaded, 
then, of your need of a gospel; and 
give up from this time forward your in- 
difference and contempt for it. Be as- 
sured that the great apparatus of a Me- 
diator, and a Sacrifice, and a risen High 
Priest, and an Intercession to reconcile, 
and a Spirit to sanctify—be assured that 
all this was not uncalled for: and now 
seek unto Him who is able to change 
you from the carnal to the spiritual, to 
crucify those affections which have their 
objects on earth and are now So vigor- 
ously alive, and to quicken within you 
such new affections as have their objects 
in Heaven, and without which heaven 
can never be the place of our abode, and 
just because it cannot be the place of our 
enjoyment. 


_THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 


109 


SERMON XIV. 
On the Knowledge of Christ and Him crucified. 


“ For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him cru- 
cified."—1 Cor. il. 2. 


* You are aware that Christian truth 
consists, not of one article, but of many 
articles ; that in the treasury of sacred 
wisdom, there are things both new and 
old, and all of which ought to be brought 
forth aud unfolded to the view of those 
who are attending the lessons of prepar- 
ation for eternity ; that just as ina land- 
scape of nature, so it is not one single 
object which either by its magnitude oc- 
cupies the whole of the spiritual land- 
scape, or even by the lustre of its over- 
bearing worth and importance ought to 
engross our exclusive regards to it. 
There is not one object in the whole 
field of revelation, which should so 
fasten and concentrate our observation 
upon it, as to detach us from all the 
others that stand out there in the visible 
exhibition; nor one of such exceeding 
size and prominency, as should cause us 
co overlook the variety of lesser objects 
that are strewed around its pedestal. 
But still as you may have often noticed 
on some scene or representation of visi- 
ble beauty, that, all crowded though it 
be with traits of loveliness, there is some 
one figure in the groupe bearing itself 
so nobly and so commandingly over the 
rest, as to be ever drawing the eye and 
the admiration of the spectator towards 
it—so, among all the diversities which 
the Bible places before the spiritual eye, 
may there be one truth of such eclipsing 
superiority over all the others, as that 
ever present, or at least of constant re- 
currence to the thoughts, it may be the 
one cn which a Christian heart shall 
dwell with perpetual fondness, and be 
oftenest absorded in the contemplation 
of it. Paul in the text points to such a 
truth ; and if he do not just tell us that 
it ought to monopolise the regards of 
every disciple, he at least tells us of its 
lofty and superlative claims upon them. 
[t is well that in this matter we have the 
guidance of apostolical taste and apostoli- 


cal discernment; nor can we do better 
than look to that very quarter where this 
gifted man of imspiration is so fixedly 
looking, when he says I am determined 
to know nothing among you save Jesus 
Christ and Him crucified. 

While so employed, we should like 
chiefly to confine your attention to the 
specification which the apostle attaches 
to our Saviour, when he passes from the 
mention of Christ in the general to the 
mention of Him crucified; and to de- 
monstrate the title which this object so 
specialised has on the supreme attention 
of Christians. And it will appear in 
the course of our observations, that, 
though Christ crucified should be the 
supreme, He is not the sole object of 
our regard; and that, so far from the 
dignity of the object being reduced in 
consequence, it is in fact enhanced when 
thus translated from a place of solitude 
to a place of supremacy. 

The first title that Chris. crucified 
hath upon our attention is, that by the 
knowledge of this we are provided 
against the most urgent and appalling 
calamity which hangs over our species. 
If we abide in ignorance herein, the 
wrath of God abideth upon us. Let 
the apathy of man to his real condition 
be what it may—this may lighten for a 
time his fears, but it does not lighten the 
actual burden of his curse and his con- 
demnation. He may have been seized 
by the spirit of deep slumber; but he 
only sleeps on the eve of a coming 
storm. Such may be the profoundness 
of his spiritual lethargy, that the denun- 
ciations of vengeance are unheard ; and 
the storehouse of that vengeance in hea- 
ven, even the breast of the offended 
Godhead, in which are treasured up the 
remembrance of all His wrongs, and 
His unalterable purposes of redress and 
vindication—this may lie hid in deep 
oblivion from his eye; and just because 


110 


the danger is wholly unfelt, the deliver-. 


ance therefrom may be wholly unprized. 
He may be alike reckless of sin and of 
the Saviour; and because the one falls 
lightly upon his conscience, the ether 
may be of light esteem in his computa- 
tion. But it is not his blindness that can 
either change, or can annihilate, the 
eternal relationships by which he is sur- 
rounded. He is within the domain of 
an eternal government, beyond which 
he cannot transport himself. He is un- 
der the authority of a strict and un- 
changeable law, from which he cannot 
escape. ‘There is a throne in heaven, 
and a God sitting upon that throne, from 
the rebuke of whose countenance he 
cannot flee away—by whom the mean- 
est of His accountable family cannot be 
overlooked—and all those dealings with 
every creature whom He has formed 
will serve to illustrate the force and the 
purity and the rectitude of a high moral 
administration. It is in the power of 
man to shut his eyes and so extinguish 
his preception of the truth: but he can- 
not extinguish the truth itself. 

These are the real, and stable, and 
substantial conditions of his being, and 
he cannot obliterate them. He hath 
broken a commandment, the awful sanc- 
tions of which were set forth in the hear- 
ing of men and of angels; and in their 
sight they must be executed. There is 
a solemn day that will speedily overtake 
us all, when we shall be reckoned with 
for our ungodliness—when we shall be 
charged with having lived out our time 
in the world, regardlessly of Him who 
made the world—when the heart shail 
be taken cognisance of for all its stray 
affections from Him to whom it owed 
supreme allegiance—when the question 
shall be put, what hast thou done unto 
God; and the mighty requirement of 
doing all things to His glory shall be set 
up, as the only standard of reference by 
which to try all our duties and all our 
deviations. All this we may cancel for a 
time from our own recollection ; but we 
cannot cancel it from the book of God’s 
remembrance—nor can we cancel it from 
those certainties which shall be fulfilled, 
on the person of every sinner who dies an 
outcast from reconciliation. Truth will 
have its way upon him. The jealousies 
of an incensed God will burst forth into 


THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 


[SErM. 


an open discharge ; and all the attributes 
of a nature that is holy and unchangeable 
must then stand out in their own proper 
demonstration. Among the frivolities of 
a short-lived day, we may have cradled 
our souls into unconcern ; and this may 
disguise from us, but it cannot destroy in 
itself, the reality of things. The treach- 
ery of this world’s delusions, can never 
belie the truth of heaven’s declarations. 
And still it remaineth, amid all the un- 
heedings of nature’s incredulity and na- 
ture’s blindness—that there must be some 
awful adjustment between God as the 
insulted Sovereign, and man as the rebel 
who hath defied and disobeyed Him. 

The direct, and, if one may so term 
it, the natural way of bringing about this 
adjustment, were by the infliction of the 
threatened penalty on those who had in- 
curred it—precisely as the difference be- 
tween a creditor and a debtor is adjusted, 
by enforcing payment. It is thus that. 
God might have eased Him of his adver- 
saries, and swept away from the face of 
His creation that guilt which had de- 
formed it; and made full demonstration 
of His justice and His power, by lifting 
up the red arm of an avenger over the 
hosts of the rebellious; and as it were 
cleared out from the domain of purity, 
the loathsome and offensive spectacle of 
sin, by dooming all who were tainted 
with it io an accursed territory, where 
they should be for ever apart from the 
children of His own kingdom. And this: 
is the very doom that lies on humanity— 
the very curse that adheres to each indi- 
vidual member of it—the very sentence 
which, whether you tremble under it or 
not, is written against you in the book 
of condemnation. And could we only 
pursue each conscience, with the appre- 
hension of this, as with an arrow sticking 
fast; and make known to its owner, how 
unrelenting the law of God is, and how 
impossible it were for Him, by any com- 
promise of dignity or of truth, to connive 
at transgression, or look to sin without 
the ful. attestation of His righteous ab- 
horrence—then might every soul, awake 
to the dread reality of its own condition, 
above all other knowledge, hold the 
knowledge of a Saviour to be indeed the 
most precious. 

And it is through a Saviour, that the 
adjustment betweer the Lawgiver ana 


J 
: 


: 





‘ 


XIV.) 


the sinner has been made. The tidings 
of this adjustment form the very essence 
of the gospel. ‘The debt is not exacted 
from the principal, because paid by a 
surety. The penalty is not laid on the 
transgressor, because laid on a substitute. 
To remove the offence of a dishonoured 
Jaw, there needeth not now that the 
offender shall be-borne away to a place 
of exile or imprisonment—for by the 
Bee of a Redeemer’s blood hath the 
aw been magnified ; and, grander exhi- 
bition far of its authority than that the 
sinner should die, is that he should pass 
under the covert of His mediatorship 
who gave himself up a nobler sacrifice. 
It is this which constitutes the excellency 
of the knowledge of Christ crucified. 
There was a need be, that the wrath of 
God should be discharged ; and it has 
been discharged on the head of this illus- 
trious sufferer. ‘There was a need be, 
that if ever mercy should go forth from 
heaven upon our world, it should wear 
upon its forehead the impress of the truth 
and justice and holiness of heaven ; and 
that these perfections of Him who dwell- 
eth there should so appear in vindicated 
majesty, as that glory to God in the 
highest might meet and be in harmony 
with peace on earth and goodwill to the 
children of men: And nowhere but in 
the cross of Christ hath the world beheld 
so very pecuiiar a manifestation of the 
Godhead. There was a need be, that, 
if ever again the sinner could be admitted 


into the august presence of Him whom 


he had displeased, the way of readmit- 


. tance should be guarded by such a cere- 


monial, as would announce to him in 
solemn and emphatic characters the evil 
of sin; and for this purpose, a way has 
been opened, through the rent vail of a 
Saviour’s flesh, and been consecrated by 
the blood of a divine atonement. And 
what can more concern you, than to 
know this path of recall from your eter- 
nal banishment? What more momentous 
to us, than that there has been found out 
another way for the descending ven- 
geance of heaven, than that it should fall 
on our guilty and devoted heads? What 
is. there on the wide universe in which 
we are placed, that should come more 
urgently home to our personal interests 
and fears, than when told of that mighty 
and mysterious transference, by which 


THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 


111 


the whole burden of this tremendous 
curse has been made to pass away from 
us; and’ we are again ushered back into 
the friendship of heaven’s family ? 

And let us have you all to understand, 
that this is not the general exposition of 
an argument, in which you have no con- 
cern, and to which you may look from 
a distance with an eye of cold and intel- 
lectual speculation. There is none here 
present, on whom it does not bear with 
the specific import of one who is point- 
edly and individually addrest by it. The 
message of the gospel is something more 
than a voice, which merely reports to all 
what is good that all may hear of it. It 
is in fact the bearer of what is good, and 
brings the good nigh unto each that each 
may lay hold of it. There is in it no 
doubt the testimony of a great deliver- 
ance for sinners; but this testimony is 
just as good as an offer to all who are with- 
in reach of the sound of it—for there is a 
way of so receiving the testimony, as 
that the deliverance of which it speaks 
shall be received along with it, and it 
thus be fastened on by an act of appropria- 
tion. And the way in which you have 
to receive it, is simply to receive it with 
credit. Put faith in it, and you will 
have in your own person the full experi- 
ence of its faithfulness. It is your trust 
in this gospel salvation, which constitutes 
your acceptance of it. It is on the step- 
ping-stone of belief in the record, that 
you pass from death unto life. ‘T'his is 
the one and only turning point of your 
reconciliation ; and did we know how to 
frame the intimation, so as to bring it 
more plainly and more persuasively to 
your doors, we should labour to assure 
you of this, that the more firm your re- 
liance on the blood of the great propitia- 
tion, the more certain is your possession 
of all it hath wrought and of all it hath 
purchased for you. 

Let the sinner then be fairly arrested 
by a sense of danger—let his conscience 
be up in alarm because of the coming 
judgment; and truth with its penetrating 
beams make known to him that he is in 
the hands of an angry God—let him 
once be overtaken by that fearfulness, 
which, under a just view of his exposed 
and guilty condition, should sieze upon 
his soul; and, shooting his anticipations 
across that barrier of death to which he 


112 


1g so rapidly approaching, let the eternity 
beyond it be peopled to the eye of his 
mind with the appalling imagery of ven- 
geance and despair—O how fondly 
would he desire, and how highly would 
he appreciate the tidings of Christ cruci- 
fied ; and even join the apostle in saying, 
_that nothing else than this he desired to 
know, because nothing but this could 
bring him relief from the terrors by 
which he was occupied. Wretched, and 
wearied out with attempts to find the 
door of escape, would he hail with rap- 
ture that outlet from the penalties of the 
law, which has been opened up by the 
expiatory death made known to us in the 
gospel ; and when he sees in the pro- 
visions of its wondrous economy, how 
by the noblest of victims there had been 
rendered to the justice of God the noblest 
of vindications—how it must rejoice him 
to find that the Divinity might at once 
be glorified and he himself be safe. 

But of what avail it may be thought, 
is the doctrine of Christ crucified, when 
there is no such vivacity of alarm— 
when people immersed in wordliness 
have no care or concern for any thing 
beyond it—when these terrors are all 
unfelt, and the tidings of deliverance are 
therefore all unheeded—and the med1- 
eine is in no demand, just because the 
disease has excited no apprehension ? 
This is very much the general condition 
of men in society. ‘They are in peace 
already, and therefore need nothing to 
pacify them. Christ has been called the 
anchor of the soul; but ere the soul go 
in quest of an anchor must it not first be 
thrown into stormy agitation? And 
must there not be revealed to the spirit- 
ual eye the vengeance that lies upon 
guilt, ere it can discern or look with fond 
complacency on the worth of the offered 
atonement ? 

Now it is very true, that, were we to 
describe the religious state of the great 
majority of our species, we should say 
that the danger on the one hand and the 
Jeliverance on the other are alike un- 
seen by them—that if they have no joy 
in the pardon of the gospel, they have 
as little consternation in the threats of the 
law—and that, profoundly asleep unto 
both, they live without delight in Christ as 
their Saviour, and without dread of God 
as their Judge. ; 


THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 


[SERM. 


And thus it has been a most natural 
imagination among Christian writers, 
that, ere men will seek to know Christ 
crucified, they must be made to know 
themselves as liable to the punishment 
that he hath borne—that they must first 
be awakened to a sight of the enemy 
who pursues them, ere they will flee to 
that place of refuge where they are in 
safety from his power—that a sense of 
guilt must take the precedency in their 
hearts, of any anxious longing after ab- 
solution from it--and that each must feel 
with pungency he is a great siuner, ere 
he can feel the preciousness of Christ as 
a great Saviour. | 

Of what use then, may it be thought, 
is it to preach Christ to a listless and 
lethargic auditory? Paul, itis true, said 
that he determined to know nothing else 
among his hearers—but is not one thing 
at least indispensable to be previously 
known, ere the excellency of the know- 
ledge of Christ can be at all appreciated 4 
Must not the neople who are addrest 
with the offer of salvation, be convinced 
of sin, ere salvation can be at all dear to 
them ? 

Let us attempt to state in a few words, 
how we conceive that this matter practi- 
cally stands. And first we think, that 
we must have the testimony of many 
consciences when we say, that there is 
not much of grief, there is not much of 
sensibility, there is not any very pungent 
or penetrating conviction of sin in your 
hearts—nothing we fear that amounts to 
a state of spiritual distress or spiritual 
restlessness—and that, bating a few 
week-day forms and a few sabbath ob- 
servations, the successive months and 
years of your existence in this world 
pass tolerably away, without any thing 
being either very sensibly felt, or very 
strenuously done by you, for the interest 
of your eternity. 

Now it is not by the very same foot- | 
steps, that all are led from their present 
state of death in trespasses and sins, to 
the state of being spiritually alive. Could 
we in the first instance disturb them out 
of their security—could we lead them to 
see that gulph of destruction, which lieth 
at the end of the broad way, crowded as 
it is by a multitude as heedless as them- 
selves—could the frown of an incensed 
lawgiver be made manifest to their souls, 





xiv.) - THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 113 


and they be told to their own apprehen- | of a sinking vessel, or the adventurer on 
sion that by nature they are undone— |asea of commercial speculation who finds 
this were a condition which some have | that his coming bankruptcy is inevitable, 
realized; and weary and heayy laden | have been known to take an opiate in 
under a sense of its terrors, have at length | mad intoxication from the agonising 
heard the invitation to rest, and to their | sense of the ruin which impended over 
happiness have found it. The terrors of | them. 
the law have shut them up unto the faith; Now it is just so with the human 
of the gospel; and they have arrived at | mind in reference to eternity, and to Him 
peace, through a labyrinth of many dis-| who has the disposal of it. Let a demon- 
quietudes. It was by an avenue through | stration be offered in the characters of 
the dark forebodings of guilt, that they | terror; and man’s first and natural move- 
at length reached a landing place among | ment would be to make his escape from 
the comforts and promises of the gospel ; | it. He will keep aloof from a spectacle 
and, as we often read in the history |that disturbs him; and by the very dis- 
of conversions—the transition of their |tance at which he stands from it, may 
hearts, from the false peace of nature to | protect his conscience from all violent or 
the true peace of Christianity, was | distressful agitation. In these circum- 
through a lone intermediate passage of | stances, let the severities of the law 
many doubts and many agitations. be offered and nothing else, and the man 
Now though this is a frequent way of |may seek after any outlet rather than 
passing out of darkness into marvellous | brave a contemplation so appalling. He 
light, it is not the only way. We would | may never, through his whole life long, 
not ply you exclusively with the threaten- | have experience of the deeper agonies of 
ings of the law—till we jadged the alarm | horror or remorse—and, just because 
to be enough lively, and the affliction for | of the wilful and resolute distance at 
sin to be enough deep and sorrowful, and | which he keeps himself from the whole 
the sense of danger and of helplessness | contemplation, he, from the place’ he 
to be enough overwhelming, and the | occupies, may view religion as a dull and 
whole discipline of legal remorse anda comfortless system ; and while perhaps 
legal apprehensions to be enough length- | he acquits himself of its outward decen- 
ened out—for then plying you with the cies, he will take care if he can help 
overtures of reconciliation, through Jesus | it not to drink in its terrors. And many 
Christ-and Him crucified. We should | are his facilities for keeping it at abey- 
rather incline to mix both at the outset of | ance, and for postponing all settlement 
our ministrations; and, alike removed | of the question to a more convenient sea- 
though many of you may be from the | son—when like to tremble as Felix of 
fears of guilt and the consolations of | old, under the power of its denunciations, 
grace, yet, within the compass of single | Flow easy it were in the glee of merry 
breathing, should we like to tell that| companionship, to drown the urgencies 
while by the one all has been lost, by the | of the last menacing sermon. How 
other all has been regained for you. manifold are the varieties of business or 
And our reason for this, will perhaps | amusement, in whose whirl he can dissi- 
recommend itselfto your own experience. | pate every rising impression of fear or of 
No man likes to open his eyes to the! seriousness in his bosom. With what 
spectacle which gives him pain; and, | effect can he lull the alarms of his inward 
should he have the power, he would | monitor, by any of the thousand sopori- 
rather turn him away from it. Could he, | fics, which sense and time and the world 
by the putting forth of his own volitions, | administer to carnality. And then how 
drown the remembrance of that which | possible it is for a man to throw himself 
hurts or which disquiets him—then the |into the arms of forgetfulness, and to 
temptation will be felt to a little more| cradle his soul in the repose of a deep 
sleep and a little more slumber. He will|and determined _ insensibility. The 
bid off the unwelcome intruder if he can; | preaching of the law, though in all the 
and that for the sake of a peaceful or a|thunders of its violated majesty, may 
leasing oblivion from all that might| have no more power to shake the sinner 
arrow up his soul—just as the mariners | out of his spiritual lethargies, than the 
15 








114 


louder fury of the storm. has to recall to 
duty the inebriated mariner. ‘The mani- 
festation of a coming vengeance to the 
one, may have just the effect that the 
manifestation of a coming shipwreck has 
upon the other. It may drive both to 
their expedients of stupefaction ; and the 
excess of an abandoned crew on the eve 
of their engulphment, is but the counter- 
part to the insanity of those, who, in this 
world’s oblivious draughts, hush all sense 
of their dark and fathomless eternity. 
The way to rally this desperado crew 
were, not that the tempest should blow 
more fiercely, but to cause the signal be 
heard of relief and safety at hand; and 
then would they put forth all their stren- 
uousness to make for it. And the way 
to summon back again from his plunge 
of reckless dissipation, the merchant 
who had lost all hope of his affairs, were 
not to astound him with the tidings of 
another disaster—but to come forth with 
such a gift or offer of suretyship, as 
might cover all his deficiencies, and 
make credit and independence again to 
smile upon his labours. And so it is with 
the voyagers of our great earthly pilgrim- 
age; and so it is with those who are 
debtors to do the whole law, and who are 
shortly to be orought to the bar of heav- 
en’s reckoning. Quite in vain to tell 
them of the coming storm, if this be all. 
Quite in vain to threaten these irrecover- 


THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM 


YRUCIFIED, [sSERM. 
able defaulters with the eternal imprison- 
ment that awaits them, if they have no 
other remedy than mad and insensate 
carelessness against the horrors of des- 
pair. ‘The only way to recall them to 
the path and the attitude of immortal 
creatures, is to clear away that thick and 
awful darkness, which before sat on the 
prospects of their immortality. There is 
no other way of rescuing them from the 
state of being without God, but by rescu- 
ing thein from the state of being without 
hope inthe world. If you want to move 
them out of their lethargy, you must fol- 
low up the demonstration of their sin, by 
the demonstration of the Saviour who 
died for it. It is this which gives such 
effect to the preaching of the gospel ; and 
turns its peace, and its invitation, and its 
kindness, into the elements of a ministry 
still more awakening, than any which 
has nought but the threats and the ter- 
rors of legality to sustain it. And you 
who have hitherto withstood all that is 
tremendous ir the -houghts of the fierce- 
ness of Almighty God—some even of 
you may be drawn to do Him homage, 
when you look to the embassy of love 
that He sent by His Son into the world; - 
and, more especially, when you see that 
the great barrier of separation is now 
taken down, and that a high way of con- 
version has been opened for you all 
through Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 


SERMON XV. 


Danger of neglecting the Gospel. 


“How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation.”—Hesrews ii. 3. 


WE recently observed, in discoursing 
on the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and of 
Him crucified, that some were visited 
with an alarming sense of danger, and 
were long kept in a state of pain and of 
perplexity, and had much of disquietude 
upon their spirits—ere they found their 
way to a place of rest, or a place of 
enlargement. They had to describe a 
course of dark and strong agitation 
among the terrors of the law, ere they 
arrived at their secure haven among the 


comforts of the gospel. And manifold is 
the recorded experience of those, on 
whose desolate hearts the light of the 
offered reconciliation never beamed—til] - 
they had been preyed upon for months: 
and years, by the remorse of a coming 
guilt, by the dread of a coming ven- 
geance. 

But we further observed, that, though 
this was frequent in the history of con- 
versions, it was far from universal. And 
why should it? There is a message of | 





xv.) 


4 
pardon from heaven at our door ; and its 
very first demand upon us, is that we 
should give credit thereto. If any one 
claim upon us be preferable to another, 
surely it is the claim of Him who cannot 
lie, that we shall believe in His testimony. 
Are we to hold the truth of God at abey- 
ance, aye and until we have walked some 
round of mental discipline and experi- 
ence, that may liken the history of our 
translation from darkness unto light, to 
that of some fellow-mortal who has gone 
before us? Are we to postpone our faith 
in an actual report, brought to us from 
the upper sanctuary, till we have brought 
the frame of our spirits to its right adjust- 
ment, by having travelled over a course 
of certain feelings and certain fluctua- 
tions? Meanwhile let us recollect, that 
an embassy from Heaven is waiting to 
be heard; that it is charged with the 
tidings of an atonement for sin where- 
with God is satisfied, if we are but satis- 
fied ; that we lie under a peremptory in- 
vitation to look unto Christ and be saved; 
and that overtures of peace and of for- 
giveness are before us, of which we are 
expressly bidden to entertain and to close 
with them. 

This is a light, in which the gospel 
hath dawned upon some at the very out- 
set of their religious earnestness; and 
no sooner did it so shine upon them than 
they rejoiced. ‘The earliest morning of 
their Christianity arose in gladness—so 
that they were scarcely sensible of any 
tempestuous passage midway, from the 
peace of nature to the peace of the gos- 
pel. The call to believe, they felt to be 
imperative; and coming as it did with 
what they were made to recognise asa 
voice of authority, it permitted not the 
lapse of a single day, between the con- 
viction that they were great sinners, and 
the consolation that Christ was a great 
Saviour. ‘T'hey felt that they had no 
right to suspend their assurance in the 
truth of what God said, till they had 
completed a given period of sighing and 
of sorrowing, because of their unworthi- 
ness. And so, they drew almost in- 
stantly to the tidings of great joy, that 
there is salvation for all who will; and 
of course they as instantly became joy- 
ful. Their transition seems to have 
been immediate, from a state of ungodli- 
ness to a sense of God as their recon- 


DANGER OF NEGLECTING THE GOSPEL. 


é 


115 


ciled Father. Some, in the process of 
being alive unto God, are made first 
alive to Him as their offended judge; 
and then alive to Him as their friend, 
whose anger has been turned away, and 
who has nought towards them but 
thoughts of peace and of great kindness. 
Others again arrive at this without any’ 
stepping-stone. They are drawn at 
once by the cords of love, without being 
driven by the terrors of the law. Instead” 
of being awakened by the thunders of 
its violated authority, they are awakened, 
like the shepherds of Bethlehem, by a’ 
music of sweeter and softer utterance, 
that breathes peace on earth and good- 
will even to the guiltiest of all its gener- 
ations. 

Now we should not object to any one 
individual who is here present being 
so awakened. Let the habit and history’ 
of his life up to this moment have been’ 
what they may, we could not forbid that. 
he should now look to the amplitude and 
the freeness of the gospel offer, and 
therein rejoice. Though never visited 
till now, with one thought of practical 
seriousness towards God—yet even now 
is it competent for him, to meet the Fa- 
ther of his spirit and count on a Father’s 
tenderness. Weask not one moment of 
distrust or despondency at his hand; 
and should like it rather, that, sunken 
though he be in the depths of spiritual 
lethargy, he were aroused therefrom, 
not by the appalling denunciations of 
vengeance, but by the sounds of jubilee, 
and the proclaimed welcome from 
Heaven of a God waiting to be gracious. 
We know that there is a peace where 
there is no peace; and better than this 
sleep of death, where the disturbance of 
loud and perpetual alarm, from which 
there might be no respite to the sinner, 
till forced to betake himself to the alone 
effectual hiding-place. But better most 
assuredly still, that you saw the hiding- 
place to be open now; and that, without 
the interval of a single moment, you 
now fled for refuge there, and that the 
soul had no sooner broken loose from 
the tranquillity of nature, than it instantly 
fastened on the anchor of a hope that 
was more sure and steadfast. At this 
rate there would be no reason of inter- 
mediate dreariness. Converts would ex- 
perience now, what was oft experienced 


a; 


Lt6 


in the days of the apostles. Their be- 
lief would instantly come in the train of 
the gospel testimony—and their joy 
would instantly come in the train of their 
belief. The glad tidings of the new 
‘Testament would have precisely the 
same effect upon their spirit, with any 
other glad tidings. It would simply 
make them glad; and so, without the 
gloom or the agitation or the terror 
through which many have to pass, might 
there bea direct hold on the promises of 
scripture,—the settled peacefulness of a 
heart, that has found its rest and its de- 
pendence under the canopy of the ac- 
cepted mediatorship. 

We know that there are some who 
apprehend a danger in making the sal- 
vation of the gospel too accessible—who 
think that it ought not thus to be cheap- 
ened down to a level with any of those 
common beauties of nature, to the free 
participation of which all are welcome— 
who would demand in every instance a 
course of preceding terror, ere the disci- 
ple shall reach the triumph or the tran- 
quillity of Faith—who feel as if it were 
due to the vindication of God’s dignity 
as a Lawgiver, that every believer shall 
be solemnized into a more awful sense 
of the evil of sin, than he is likely to at- 
tain, by an easy and immediate transi- 
tion from a state of wrath to a state of 
acceptance—and who, for this purpose, 
would have him to undergo the chasten- 
ing of a legal discipline, during which 
he might taste the bitterness of remorse ; 
and be left for a season to mourn or 
tremble under the hidings of God’s of 
fended countenance. Now we dispute 
not that this is one, and a very common 
way, in which the law acts as a school- 
master for bringing men to Christ. Yet 


_- §t-is not the invariable way. And still 


.we.affirm, that the gospel cannot be 
ttasted in too soon; and that men cannot 


' give-up. too early their doubt and their 
- vunbelief in the truth of Heaven’s com- 


raunication ; and that the more quickly 
we are rid of all suspense, in regard to 
God’s own testimony, the better—or in 


. other words, the more shortly that the pe- 


-ridd: of dread and disturbance comes to 


'\an end, and the sooner we thus arrive at 
' \the.tranquillity of the Christian faith, the 
' more prompt and therefore the more 


DANGER OF NEGLECTING THE GOSPEL. 


[SERM. 


pleasing is the homage that we render 
unto God’s faithfulness. | 
And there is nought in the freeness 
of the gospel, that should cheapen or de- 
grade the honours of the law. For in. 
reference to those who do accept the offer 
of its immunities, Christ hath made am- 
ple provision for all their offences and 
indignities against the law of God, b 
taking upon Himself the burden of their 
atonement. And in reference to those 
who decline the offer, against them the 
law still reserves the right of its entire 
vindication. Those penalties, which, by 
fleeing to Christ, they might have eva- 
ded, will all be discharged upon them ; 
and the frown of offended majesty will 
gather into tenfold darkness, because, to 
the provocation of a broken command- 
ment, they have added the further provo- 
cation of a despised and rejected amnesty. 
Their first blow was at the sceptre of. 
Heaven’s authority ; and for this they 
have incurred condemnation. Their 
second blow is at the sceptre of Heaven’s 
clemency; and for this they seal their 
condemnation, and make it irreversible. 
It is most true, that, by the constitution 
of the gospel, there is a free and willing 
dispensation of mercy to all who will; 
and the vilest of sinners may at the in- 
stant, set himself down under the shadow 
of it, and be safe. Some have listened to 
its call, and the law has not been degra- 
ded by their justification—for in the per- 
son and sacrifice of Christ, the noblest of 
all indemnities has: been rendered to it. 
And many have been unheeding of the 
call, and neither in them has the law 
been degraded or brought to shame—for 
the justice of God will only burn the 
more fiercely, because the voice of His 
compassion has been lifted up in vain. 
In very proportion to the tenderness of 
that slighted call which came forth from 
the mercy-seat, will be the force and the 
power of that anger which shall descend 
from the throne of judgment on the still 
unreclaimed hosts of the rebellious. The 
more rich the provision of grace is, the 
more fell and hopeless will be the con- 
demnation of those guilty, who have 
spurned it away from them. If the 
herald of forgiveness have made full and 
open proclamation, the executioner of 
vengeance who comes after him, will on: 


xv.] 


that account break forth in the uttermost 


of his fury on all whom he finds to be. 


still’standing on the ground of defiance. 
Should the sacredness of God have ap- 
peared to let itself down by a proposal 
of fellowship with sinners,—tremendous 
will be the reaction of His offended dig- 
nity on those sinners, who shall refuse 
to entertain it. ‘The very greatness of 
the offered deliverance will be the sorest 
aggravation to the doom of those who 
have met it with repulse and indignity— 
for how can they escape, when they 
neglect so great a salvation ? 

Such an economy is at one with the 
‘most familiar and recognized principles 
that are current in human society. The 
man who has been insulted and defrauded 
by another, and has suffered the provo- 
cation of many sore and repeated inju- 
ries at his hand, is admitted to havea 
direct claim of redress and reparation 
But should he forbear the prosecution. of 
the claim—should he, in the tenderness 
of his nature towards the individual who 
had aggrieved him, stifle the vindictive 
propensities of his heart, and give way toa 
pitying sensation in behalf of himself and 
his family—should he, by a movement of 
generosity, hold out the right hand of 
fellowship, and assure the author of all 
his wrongs, that still his only desire was 
for peace, and his only purposes were 
those of yet unquelled kindness and re- 
gard for him—should he, though the 
offended party, come down so far as to 
entreat a reconciliation ; and to protest, 
in the voice of a supplicant, his readiness 
to forgive all and to forget all—Who 
among you does not feel from the work- 
ings of his own bosom, that, though it 
were possible to stand out the provocation 
of direct and multiplied offences, yet to 
stand out the provocation of trampling 
under foot the despised and derided 
clemency that has been so generously 
awarded may not be possible? ‘l'he 
malice, and the calumny,and the injus- 
tice of the man, may all be borne with ; 
but the contempt, and the carelessness 
wherewith he hears of the offered par- 
don, or eyes the advances of a wished-for 
‘and attempted reconciliation—this cannot 
be borne with. The power of sufferance 
may have been tried beyond the limit of 
that uttermost compression whereof it is 
eapab!e—but when at length it does break 


DANGER OF NEGLECTING THE GOSPEL. 


117 


forth in the might of its elasticity ; and 
overleaps all those barriers of restraint, 
within which the angry passions of na- 
ture lay struggling, as in the bosom ofa 
voleano—who does not see that the pa- 
tience and the long-suffering, which were 
in the mind of the long unwearied bene- 
factor, and above all the message of for- 
giveness which proceeded from his lips 
—who does not see that these are the 
very causes which enhance the guilt of 
the scorner, the very elements which 
bring the most overwhelming discharge 
upon him ? 

And this is the very evolution which 
takes place under the economy of the 
gospel. You are now beseeched by the 
meekness and the gentleness of Christ, 
In a little while, and you may run to 
hide yourselves from the wrath of the 
Lamb. ‘To-day, if you will hear his 
voice, the goodness of God would lead 
you unto repentance. But if, in the hard- 
ness of thine impenitent heart, the touch 
of a practical impulse be quite unfelt by 
you, then is there another day which is 
called the day of the righteous judgments 
of God.. There is not a hearer now pre- 
sent, who is not honestly invited to kiss 
the Son while He is in the way—but, 
along with the invitation, he must also. 
take the alternative, that time is short; 
and the way of reconciliation will soon 
be closed against him; and the Son of 
God, instead of being found in that way, 
will be seated on a throne of judgment, 
whence His wrath shall speedily begin 
to burn against all who have failed com- 
pliance with Him. You have first set 
at nought the authority of the law; but 
this is a controversy that might still be 
settled. But if you now set at nought 
the grace of the gospel, this will be the 
consummation of your injuriousness to- 
wards God, and the breach between Him 
and you will be wholly irreparable. 
You first took from Him the tables of a 
holy commandment, and these to your 
own condemnation, you have broken. 
He then stretched forward the olive 
branch of forgiveness ; and you, by your 
unconcern, may now lay upon it the most 
degrading mockery. It is this which 
gives the force and the operation of a 
two-edged sword to the preaching of the 
gospel; and, while the savour of life 
unto life to all who will, it is this which 


al8 


anakes it the savour of death unto death 
‘ty all who will not. In proportion as 
the unrelenting sinner is plied now with 
the looks and the language of tender- 
ness, will he have to brook then the 
glances of a fiery indignation ; and that 
grace which were sufficient here to efface 
the whole guilt wherewith his nature is 
so deeply and inveterately tainted, will, 
if turned away from, but aggravate there 
tthe reproach and the reckoning of a God 
of vengeance. 

You may now see how it is that the 
law and the gospel, instead of thwarting 
or obliterating each other in the exercise 
vof their respective functions, reflect on 
‘the provinces of both the greatest possible 
force of illustration. In looking towards 
them, we may say with the apostle, be- 
Aold then the goodness and the severity 
of God; and, instead of these in a state 
‘of conflict, each, by every new exercise, 
strengthening that wall of demarcation 
‘by which the territory of the other is 
guarded from all violence. Should a 
‘sinner, pursued by the terrors of the one, 
take refuge among the promises of the 
other—he does not therefore defraud the 
jaw of its challengeable rights ; but ren- 
ders to it, in fact, the greatest possible 
homage, by bowing unto Him, who, in 
honour of the law, bowed down His 
head unto the sacrifice. Or, if the sinner 
stand out in defiance to the threat of the 
daw, and be alike indifferent to the pro- 
anise of the gospel—then does the latter 
still leave him in the hands of the former. 
The gospel does not stripthe law of a 
single prerogative ; and, instead of har- 
bouring the renegado who would trample 
upon both, the rejected mercy of the one 
unites with the incensed justice of the 
other, in giving tenfold force to the pen- 
alties of a broken commandment. 

But Nature is alike blind to the reality 
of both. In the gospel, it takes no de- 
light ; and, from the law, it finds no dis- 
turbance. ‘The voice of remorse, and the 
voice of mercy, are alike unheeded. The 
open gates of Hell and of Heaven, which 
lie on the other side of death, are hidden, 
as if by an impalpable screen, from the 
eye of the senses; and with every man 
who is still unawakened, they are equally 
hidden from his spiritual eye. One might 
conceive, that, by a partial unfolding of 
the screen, the way which leadeth from 


DANGER OF NEGLECTING THE GOSPEL. 


[SERM. 


this world to the place of the accursed 
opened first on the view of the beholder ; 
and then should we witness conscious 
guilt in its state of remorse and restless- 
ness and alaim—till the screen had been 
further unfolded ; and the way that lead- 
eth to the place of the redeemed, floating 
with the signals of invitation, and an- 
nouncing itself to te accessible to all, 
stood revealed to the eye of the earthly 
traveller. And this is a process that is. 
oft exemplified on those, who are calied 
out of darkness into marvellous light. 
But often, too, the intercepting veil is at 
once lifted away; and both the danger 
and the deliverance are made palpable 
alike to the soul, now ushered for the 
first time into a scene of manifestation ; 
and no sooner are the thunders of an out- 
raged law heard by the spiritual ear, . 
than are heard along with it the glad 
tidings and assurances of the gospel ; 
and, with both in your full contemplation 
at once, might you be urged to a choice 
between the death and the life that are 
set forth evidently before you. They are 
both placed beside each other in the text, 
which suggests to the reader, at one and 
the same time, the greatness of the ruin, 
and the greatness of the deliverance 
therefrom. It makes a dread of the one, 
the instrument for shutting up unto the 
other ; and urges the alternative of the 
coming wrath, as the reason on which 
we ought to flee to the hope set before us 
in the gospel. For how shall we escape 
if we neglect so great salvation ? 

And it is observable, that the purpose 
for which the greatness of the salvation 
is here argued, is to vindicate a heavier 
doom on all those who shall live and die 
in the negligence thereof. After such 
an offer being rejected, their blood re- 
maineth on their own heads. God wipeth 
His hands of them ; and what more, may 
He well say, could I have done for my 
vineyard that I have not done for it? 
Had there been no way of escape pointed 
out to you, it might not have been so 
easy to answer the complaints of the 
sinner against God. But now that a 
way at once so palpable and so free has 
been provided, and provided too for 
all under the economy of the gospel— 
when, in lack of all righteousness of his 
own, the righteousness of Christ is held 
out even te the chief of sinners, that 


he may put it on and appear before God 
invested in its honours and crowned with 
its everlasting rewards—when invited, as 
he most truly and tenderly is, to wash 
out his guilt in the blood of a satisfying 
atonement ; and delivered at once from 
‘the fear and the shame of an accusing 
conscience, to walk in the land of the 
living with the erect confidence of him 
who never had offended—when plied 
with the demonstrations of a Father’s 
love, that hath been made to beam upon 
the world from a Saviour’s countenance, 
and to descend upon it in softest utter- 
ance from a Saviour’s lips—when the 
oath, and the protestation, and the as- 
surance of welcome and goodwill, and 
the widely-sounding call of look unto 
me all ye ends of the earth and be saved; 
when these are hung out to view in 
the indelible record of God’s own testi- 
mony—when He hath thus embarked, 
and in the sight too of men and of angels, 
the credit of His honesty, on the fulfil- 
ment of the promise, that, if you will but 
close with Christ and accept of Him 
as He is offered to you in the gospel, you 
will receive along with Him an unfailing 
protection upon earth and a blissful eter- 
nity in Heaven—when things of mighty 
import as these are rung from sabbath to 
sabbath in your hearmg ; and every day 
of the week solicit your notice, through 
bibles or ministers or the various remem- 
brancers of Him who hath not left Him- 
self without a witness in the world— 
O tell us how you can pass through the 
ordeal of the coming judgment, if it shall 
be found, that, deaf and listless and wilful 
in the midst of all these encouragements, 
you still would grovel in the depths of 
your own sin and your own sordidness— 
moved by no terror in the threats of ven- 
geance, and by no allurement in the 
offered friendship of God. 

And what is it that makes you feel so 
reckless and so bravely independent ? 
Do you really think yourselves in a state 
which it will do to die in? Would no 
misgiving sense of unpreparedness come 
over your heart, did you but once find 
yourselves in good earnest on the margin 
of eternity ? Can you seriously imagine 
of God’s law, that its honors can be com- 
promised—or of God himself, that He 
can be mocked with impunity by a 
creature who his whole life long has 


DANGER OF NEGLECTING THE GOSPEL. 


119 


turned him to his own way? Tell us, 
honestly, whether the peace of your now 
deep and settled unconcern, is that ofa 
man who has blinked the question of his 
eternity, and so left it unresolved—or that 
of a man who has sifted and scrutinized 
it in all its bearings, and at length placed 
it on the footing that will rightly uphold 
him in security through life, and keep 
him firm and undismayed under the 
agonies of his death-bed? What! can 
you lay your hand upon your heart, and 
say that there is nothing there which 
might well make the death and the judg- 
ment and the eternity to be thoughts 
of fearfulness; or bold in the sense 
of your own integrity, could you now 
stand the reckoning of a Holy God with- 
out a gospel and without a Saviour? 
Are you not aware of sin, that it has de- 
ranged the whole of the relationship 
between you and God; and is it not true 
that this is the strong though secret 
jealousy, under which you would fain 
escape the contemplation of His presence 
or tremble at the thought of Him as of an 
enemy who was armed to destroy you? 
And whether is it for Him the offended 
party, or for you the offender, to find out 
the adjustment of this sore controversy ; 
and to dictate the terms and the treaty of 
reconciliation? Or, should He, in pity 
to our fallen world, stoop from the heights 
of His affronted majesty, and again 
beckon to His own realms of love and of 
purity its hapless wanderers—tell me is 
it for you to quarrel with that path 
of access which He has prescribed, or 
strong in the testimony of an unappalled 
conscience, to say that you want no sal- 
vation and stand in need of no mediator- 
ship. 

But we cannot think of any here pre- 
sent, that, with minds thus made up, they 
can bid their whole-hearted defiance ‘to 
the invitations of the gospel. They do 
know that all is not right about them. 
They do feel that many are the bible texts 
which look hard at them. They are 
aware of God as a Lawgiver; and how 
it is that He can both be just anda 
Saviour, is a knot of difficulty in their 
minds, which, till resolved, leaves the 
question of their eterniry at abeyance. 
There is the impression of a barrier be- 
tween Him who sitteth on the throne and 
their own persons, which to them at least 


120 


is insuperable. And perhaps at one time 
or other, the thought may have come 
over their hearts—what a mighty en- 
largement were this barrier done away 
and the sore burden of this heavy and 
helpless alienation were disposed of, and 
all remembrance of our sins were ex- 
punged for ever, and the gate of a secure 
and blisstul Heaven were open to receive 
us, and we heard the shouts of welcome 
gratulation on bending our footsteps 
thitherward.. What a contrast to the 
things and the influences which are now 
around us, could we find it only thus— 
and we, in full and confident march to 
immortality, knew the Saviour to be our 
friend, and God to be rejoicing over us. 
Well then my brethren ; and is this the 
translation into a state of betterness that 
your fancy ever dwelt upon, and has 
longed. to realise? ‘This thing on which 
you are So intensely set, is the very thing 
that the gospel hath spread out before 
you. By what mistake is it, that you 
and the gospel of Jesus Christ have not 
found their way to each other sooner ? 


DANGER OF NEGLECTING THE GOSPEL. 


[SERM. ° 


What you so vehemently wish, He hath 
accomplished. His right arm _ hath 
brought for you the whole of this salva- 
tion; and now it is finished, and ‘es 
ready at this moment for your accep- 
tance. Why stand you thus in vain and 
fruitless aspirations, after a matter that is 
already secured—and which now you 
are simply invited to lay hold of? Grar 

that you are a sinner above all the sin- 
ners on the face of the earth—still the 
blood of Christ overmatches the virulence 
of your guilt; and the open path of ac- 
cess that He has consecrated, you also 
are welcome to walk upon; and God 
who waiteth to be gracious, only waiteth 
for your trust in His mercy through the 
atonement of the cross, that he may treat 
you mercifully. And even now may you 
strike an agreement with the God whom 
you have offended ; and make a final es- 
cape from all future vengeance, and from 
all your present forebodings, by fleeing 
for refuge unto Christ Jesus and laying 
hold of His great salvation. 


SERMON XVI. 


The relation of the Law to the Gospel. 


“ For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”—Romans. x. 4. 
‘‘ Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience and 
of faith unfeigned.”—1 Timorny i. 5. 


lL. Tue law of God may be viewed in 
a twofold aspect—either as that by which, 
when we imbibe the virtues that it en- 
joins, we build up and beautify a person- 
al character; or as that by which, when 
we satisfy the demands that it prefers, we 
acquire a title both to the full enjoyment 
of its rewards and to a full exemption 
from its penalties. ‘There isa distinction 
here, which, if steadily kept in view, 
would, we are persuaded, prove a safe- 
guard, both against the errors of legality, 
and the equally pernicious errors of an- 
tinomianism. The subject is truly an 
important one; for we reckon, that the 
whole economy of the gospel is pervaded 
by 1t—nor can we think of a likelier ex- 
pedient for the illustration of the evan- 
gelical system, than just to lay hold of 


the distinction that we have now an- 
nounced in its principle, and then follow 
it out into its legitimate applications. 
First then, when the law is viewed in 
relation to the righteousness which con- 
stitutes the title to its rewards ; then, when 
we strive to make this out by our own 
obedience, the aim is to possess ourselves 
ofa legal right to the kingdom of Heaven. 
It is our object to render an adequate 
price for that glorious inheritance; and 
that the value given in the worth of our 
performances, shall be equal to the value 
received, in the worth of that eterna! 
blessedness which we labour to realise 
We proceed on the imagination of a con 
tract between God and man—whereof 
the counterpart terms are a fulfilment of 
the law’s requisitions upon the one side, 


SEE} 


~apd a bestowment of the law’s rewards 
upon the other. ‘The one is the purchase 
money—the other is the payment. They 
stand related to each other, as work does 
to wages. Obedience is the allotted task 
—Heaven is the stipulated hire. When 
this is the conception present to the mind, 
the going abont to establish our own 
- righteousness, is just going about to estab- 
lish our ewn right to immortal happiness. 
And like as the servant who hath accom- 
plished his term or his task, can challenge 
from his master on earth the covenanted 
recompense—so it is figured by many, 
that, alter the course of virtue in this life 
is ended, he who hath acquitted himself of 
its achievements and its toils, may chal- 
lenge from his Master in Heaven that 
everlasting life, which under the law of 


ward of obedience. 

Now this spirit of legality, as it is 
called, is nearly the universal spirit, of 
humanity. It is not Judaism alone, it is 
Nature. They are not the Israelites 


eousness of their own. ‘The very same 
thing may be detected among the relli- 
gionists of all countries and all ages. 
Their cleaving and constant tendency is 
to bargain for heaven by their services— 
nor can they easily md themselves of 
this mercantile imagination, When they 
attempt a career of righteousness, it is to 
establish a right. It is to win their sal- 
vation by merit—just as any labourer 
wins the remuneration that he has 
wrought for. It is to constitute a claim, 
which they might prefer at the court of 
the Divine Lawgiver, in plea of pay- 
ment—and which payment is held to 
consist, in the favour of God; and ad- 
mission to those realms of bliss, where 
He reigns and holds unceasing jubilee, 
among the choirs and companies of 
the celestial. This is the obsinate 
tendency of nature, charged in_ the 
Apostle’s days on the ignorance of the 
Israelites—but certainly such an ignor- 
ance, as mere doctrine or mere informa- 
tion cannot dissipate. ‘I'here is in fact a 
Jegal disposition in the heart, which 
keeps its ground against all the articles 


THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 








12. 


will man as if by the bias of a constitu- 
tional necessity, recur to the old legal 
imagination, of this virtue being a thing 
of desert, and of Heaven being the re- 
ward which is due to it. 

And certain it is, that for man to estab- 
lish a right by his righteousness, is in 
the face of all jurisprudence. When 
this is the object after which he strives, 
he indeed spends his labour after that 
which is nought—wearying and wast- 
ing himself on a thing which is im- 


practicable. If there be one charac- 
ter of the law of God more distinct 
and more declared than another, it 


is the resolute, the unbending assertion 
which it makes of its own authority ; 


‘and, in virtue of which, it will stoop to 
/no compromise with human disobedience. 
“do this and live,” is held out as the re- | 


‘There is in this respect, a high state and 
sovereignty in the divine government, 
from which it is impossible that it ever 
can descend. There might in some 
other way be acceptance for the sinner ; 


‘but never by the admission of the sin- 
only who go about to establish a right- | 


ner’s right to the rewards of a law which 
he hath violated. This is a position, 
which, whether in the dispensation of 
the Old or in the dispensation of the 
New ‘Testament, never once is receded 
from. Both the law and the gospel 
alike disown man’s legal right to the re- 
wards of eternity ; andif he be too proud 
to disown it himself, he remains both a 
victim of condemnation by the one, and 
a helpless a hopeless outcast from the 
mercy of the other. If man will persist, 
as nature strongly inclines him, in seek- 
ing to make out a title-deed to Heaven 
by his own obedience, then that obedi- 
ence must be perfect,—else there is a 
flaw in the title-deed, which is held to be 
irreparable. It is thus that the law of 
Heaven looks down upon Earth, in the 
firm the unfaltering aspect of its own in- 
flexibility ; and that if man seeks, in es- 
tablishing a righteousness, to establish a 
right—it forthwith becomes a question of 
equity ; and the principles of strict, ab- 
solute, unchanging equity, are brought 
rigidly and relentlessly to bear upon 
him. On the moment that the element 
of a right is introduced into the ques- 


and demonstration of orthodoxy ; and, |tion between God and man; then man 
long after that jurisprudence hath made | instead of sueing for Heaven in the atti- 
most clear and conclusive argument of |tude of a_ petitioner for mercy, 1s de- 
the utter shortness of human virtue, yet 'manding ‘it in the attitude of a claimant 


16 


122 


THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL, 


[SERM. 


for justice—ani the law accepts of his! insignificance of all that man can do for 


challenge upon his own terms. The 
two parties are confronted together on 
the ground of equity and truth; and the 
matter will be decided on considerations 
proper to that ground, and upon no other. 
If man, on the one hand, have presump- 
tuously lifted himself up to a claim, that 
is above the merits of his obedience—the 
jaw, on the other hand, will not, on that 
account, let itself down beneath the level 
of its own demands and its own declara- 
tions. Man hath braved the combat 
upon an arena of his own choosing ; 
and it is by the rules of that arena, that 
his fate must be determined. He hath 
appealed unto Cesar, and to Cesar he 
must go. He hath made mention of his 
right; and, by the very term, he hath 
committed his cause to a tribunal of jus- 
tice. He hath sisted himself before God 
as a lawgiver—even the God who says 
that He will not be mocked; and that 
the law which hath proceeded out of his 
mouth, can no more be nuliified or 
brought to shame, than can the truth and 
righteousness of the Godhead. 

It is thus, that, in seeking to establish 
a right by his righteousness, he finds 
that even if he have but committed one 
sin—there is the barrier of what may be 
called a moral necessity in his way, 
which it is impossible to force. The 
God who cannot he, cannot recall the 
utterance which Himself hath made 
against the children of iniquity; and 
He hath denounced a curse, upon every 
one who continueth not in all the words 
of the book of His law to do them. And 
SO it is that every sinner who goes about 
to establish a righteousness of his own, 
is either borne down by the misgivings 
of a conscience which only serves to 
haunt and paralyze him; or he lives at 
ease, because living in the delusion of a 
vain and groundless security. For one 
of two things must happen. Either with 
a high and therefore a just conception of 
the standard of the law, he will be dis- 
pirited and sink into despair ; or with a 
low conception of that standard, he, 
though but grovelling among the mere 
decencies of civil life or the barren for- 
malities of religious service, will aspire 
no farther and yet count himself safe. 

Now herein lies the grand peculiarity 
ofthegospel It pronounces on the utter 


the establishment of his right to the king- 
dom of Heaven; and yet, he must be 
somehow or other provided with such a 
right, ere that he can find admittance 
there. It holds out eternal life to him, 
not on the footing of a simple gratuity— 
but in return for, and on the consideration 
of a righteousness. His own righteous- 
ness it most pointedly and peremptorily 
refuses to entertain as that consideration ; 
and makes throughout all its pages, the 
total the unqualified denial of the efficacy 
of human virtue, when directed to the 
end of substantiating upon its own merits 
a title or a legal claim to the rewards of 
immortality. This no doubt was one 
great and primary end of the law—even 
that man, by the fulfilment of its requisi- 
tions, might obtain for himself a right to 
its rewards. But this end of the law, 
man hath hopelessly frustrated by his 
own disobedience. He hath entirely for- 


feited the right; and he cannot re-estab- 


lish it, with all his strenuousness. And 
yet he would fain make the trial. It is 
that to which nature is constantly prompt- 
ing him. ‘There is an inveteracy in the 
legal spirit—so that it remains unquelled 
by the declarations of the gospel from — 
without, however responded to from 
within, by the depositions of a conscience, 
that cannot but feel the shortness and the 
insufficiency of all our obedience. It is 
in opposition to this legal spirit, that the 
worthlessness, the absolute nullity of all 
human virtue, is, in the records of the 
evangelical dispensation, affirmed so con- 
stantly ; and that the same doctrine is so 
zealously repeated, by the faithful and 
orthodox ministers of that dispensation. 
That righteousness of his own, where- 
with man would proudly array and set 
himself forward as a claimant for Heav- 
en, the Bible, with all honest and fearless 
expounders of the Bible, pronounces upon 
as filthy rags; and nothing can exceed 
the terms of degradation, in which it 
stigmatizes, nay vilifies all human right- 
eousness, when ought like a right is 
founded thereupon. 

Still without the investiture of a legal 
right, man obtains no part nor possession 
in the mheritance above. It is not by an 
act of mercy alone, that the gate of Heav- 
en is opened to the sinner. With his 
entry there, there is in some way or 


»XVL] 


other, a merit associated. It is not 


enough that he appears with a petition at. 


the bar of mercy. He must be furnished 


with a plea, which he can state at the| 


bar of justice—not, it would appear, the 
plea of his own deservings, which we 
have already found that the gospel holds 
no terms with ; and therefore with a plea, 
founded solely and exclusively on the de- 
servings of another. Now what we 
reckon to be the very essence of the gos- 
pel, is the report which it brings to a sin- 
ful world of a solid and satisfying plea ; 
and that every sinner is welcome to the 
use of it. In defect of his own righteous- 
ness, which he is required to disown, as 
having any part in his meritorious ac- 
ceptance with God, he is told of an ever- 
lasting righteousness which another has 
brought in ; and which he is invited, nay 
commanded, to make mention of. It is 
thus that Christ becomes the end of the 
law for righteousness, that is for justify- 
ing righteousness, or for a righteousness 
which gives a right to him who possesses 
it. ‘This end of the law we have fallen 
short of ; for we could have only achiev- 
ed it for ourselves by our perfect and un- 
failing obedience. Christ therefore hath 
achieved it for us. He hath for us, by 
his sacrifice, borne the penalties of the 
law. He hath for us, by his obedience, 
won the rewards of the law. And, by 
the constitution of the gospel, every one 
who believeth is on this high vantage 
ground. He is as much exempted from 
the denounced vengeance of a broken 
law, as if in his own person he had al- 
ready borne it. He is as much secured 
in the stipulated recompense of an obser- 
ved law, as if in his own person he had 
rendered a full and faultless observation. 
He has attained an interest in the right- 
eousness of Christ by faith; and with 
this he has attained the end of the law 
for righteousness. 

And so this righteousness by faith, is 
the frequent, the favourite theme, of evan- 
gelical ministers. It may indeed be called 
the Shibboleth of their preaching. They 
are men who exalt to the uttermost the 
righteousness by faith. And they are 
men who degrade to the uttermost the 
righteousness by works. But let it be 
distinctly kept in view, that it is in respect 
of its sufficiency for the establishment of 
a valid right to Heaven that they exalt 


THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL, 


123 


the one—and’ only. in respect of its in- 
sufficiency for the establishment of this 
right, that they so depreciate the other.— 
And this, not because, as many do ima- 
gine, of the low ; but truly because of the 
high estimation in which virtue is held 
by them. ‘They first look to the law. 
that pure and perfect exemplar of all 
righteousness—and there they learn what 
a noble and elevated and perfect thing, 
is that morality which it prescribes to us. 
‘They then look to the actual state of hu- 
man obedience ; and just in proportion 
to their lofty estimation of virtue in itself, 
is their lowly estimation of virtue in man. 
It is just because so alive to the worth of 
virtue, that they are so alive to the worth- 
lessness of man; and the higher their 
regards are cast towards its supreme ex- 
cellency, the lower must actual humanity 
appear in their eyes, as beneath the stan- 
dard from which human virtue has so 
immeasurably fallen. ‘They have indeed 
a very humble reckoning of what men 
are, but only because they have a very 
exalted reckoning of what men ought to 
be; and, so far from these advocates for 
the righteousness of faith having lost all 
sense of morality or of its importance, 
they have fled to this righteousness as 
their only refuge, just because a rever- 
ence for morality exists so purely and so 
sacredly in their bosoms. Why is it, 
that they prefer that righteousness of 
Christ which faith trusts in, as their only 
argument for Heaven, to that righteous- 
ness of man which is yielded by the obe- 
dience of works, and on which so many 
would found as their pretention and their 
plea for the rewards of Heaven’s blessed- 
ness? It is just because they see perfec- 
tion in the one righteousness, and pollu- 
tion in the other—in the one an adequate 
tribute to the sovereignty of the law, and 
therefore a full and finished right to its 
rewards ; in the other all the worthless- 
ness of a lame and imperfect offering, 
and on which therefore no right can be 
alleged without violence to the law’s in- 
censed dignity. ‘These surely are not 
the men, among whom all sense of mo- 
rality lies extinct and prostrate in their 
bosoms. ‘There appears rather to be the 
very strength and spirit of a moral es- 
sence in that doctrine which they hold ; 
and it seems the fruit of their more ade- 
quate homage to the law, that, under the 


124 


THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 


[SERM. 


feeling of their own distance ana deficien-| charity, and its bidden uprightmess, upon 


cy therefrom, they have laid hold upon 
Christ as the end of the law for right- 
eousness, 


Il. But this though one, xs not the only 
end of the law. It had another and a 
distinct object, from that of holding out a 
method, by which we might acquire a 


right to its promised rewards—even that | 


of holding out a method, by which we 
might acquire a rightness of character, 
in the cultivation and the exercise of its 
bidden virtues. The legal right which 
obedience confers is one thing. The 
personal rightness which obedience con- 
fers isanother. For the first object the 
law has now become useless; and, hav- 
ing fallen short of personal righteousness 
ourselves, we must now find our legal 
right only inthe righteousness of Christ. 
For the latter object, the law still retains 
all the use and all the importance which 
it ever had. It is that written tablet, on 
which are inscribed the virtues of the 
Godhead ; and we, by copying these on 
the tablet of our own characters, are re- 
stored to the image of Him who created 
us. We utterly mistake the design and 
economy of the gospel, if we think— 
that, while the first function of the law 
has been superseded under the new dis- 
pensation, the second has been superse- 
ded also; or because the penalties of our 
old disobedience are now done away, the 
precepts of our new obedience are there- 
fore dispensed with. Obedience for a 
legal right is everywhere denounced in 
the New Testament, as-a presumptuous 
and vain enterprise. Obedience for a 
personal-rightness, is everywhere urged 
in the New Testament, as an enterprise, 
the prosecution of which forms the main 
business of every disciple ; and the full 
achievement of which is that prize of his 
high calling, to which he must press for- 
ward continually. For the one end, the 
law has altogether lost its efficacy ; and 
we, in our own utter inability to substan- 
tiate its claims, must seek to be justified 
only by the righteousness of Christ. For 
the other end, the law retains its office as 
a perfect guide and exemplar of all vir- 
tue; and we, empowered by strength 
from on high to follow its dictates, must 
seek to be sanctified by the transference 
of its bidden godliness, and its bidden 


our own characters. Human viitue hath 
ceased, under the economy of grace, to 
be the price of Heaven—for this power 
it lost, and lost irfecoverably, by its 
ceasing to be perfect. But human virtue 
is still the indispensable preparation for 
Heaven ; and we, helped from the sane- 
tuary above, to struggle with all the im- 
perfections of our corrupt and carnal na- 
ture below, must, by a life of prayer and 
painstaking and all duteous performance, 
make way through the frailties and 
temptations of our sinful state in time, to 
a meetness for the joys of that endless 
inheritance which is beyond it. It is no 
longer the purchase-money, by which 
to buy your right of entry or admittance 
into the marriage supper of the Lamb. 
But it is the wedding garment, without 
which you will never be seated among 
the beatitudes of that glorious and im- 
mortal festival. ‘To be meet in law, and 
without violence done to the jurispru- 
dence of Heaven, we must be invested 
by faith with the righteousness of Christ. 
‘lo be meet in character, and without 
offence or violence to the spirit or the 
taste of Heaven’s society, we must be in- 
vested with the graces of our own per- 
sonal righteousness. 

But thus it is, that the ministers of the 
gospel of Jesus Christ have been so 
orievously misunderstood. ‘They strenu- 
ously affirm of human virtue, that it has 
no place in our title-deed to the Jerusa- 
lem above. And therefore, they have 
been charged with denying it that place, 
which it invariably and essentially has 
in the hearts and natures of all who en- 
ter therein. Because they have disjoined 
it from the legal claim, the imagination 
is that they have also disjoined it from 
the persona. character—or because not 
permitted to be set forth and blazoned in 
a title-deed, that therefore it needs net by 
their theology, to have a residence or a 
being in the souls of believers. 

And not only have these*faithful ex- 
pounders-of the New Testament been 
charged with hostility to the cause of per- 
sonal righteousness; but the New Tes- 
tament itself has been charged with in- 
consistency upon this subject. ‘There is 
a felt puzzle in the minds of men, in con- 
sequence of its apparently opposite repre- 
sentations.on the importance of good 





XVL] . 


works, and on the place and considera- 
tion which they should be made to oc- 
cupy in the system of the gospel—de- 
nounced at one time as insignificant and 
worthless, demanded at another as indis- 
pensable to all true discipleship. The 
explanation is, that they are available for 
one end, but they are unavailable for 
another. ‘They avail not for justification. 
‘They are inseparable from sanctification. 
They confer no right to the favour of 
God; but they enter as constituents into 
that rightness, without which no man 
shall see His face. They now possess 
no importance whatever in the covenant 
between God and man. They still pos- 
sess a supreme importance in the charac- 
ter of both—the just and_ beneficent 
works of the Deity, being the fruits or 
the emanations of His inate personal 
righteousness; and our works of the 
same or a similar kind, being in like 
manner the fruits of that inborn personal 
righteousness, which, imprest upon. us 
by the Holy Spirit, renews us after the 
image, and fits us for the everlasting so- 
ciety of Him whe created us. The 
works of a believer are short of perfec: 
tion; and therefore short of that end for 
which the law is now superseded, and 
Christ is substituted in its place—even 
the end of making good our right by our 
righteousness. 

But the works of every believer are 
growing up, and carrying him forward 
to perfection ; and, for this end, the law 
still retains the office of a guide and of a 
stimulant—even the end of making good 
a seemly and a suitable character, for 
that land of perfect love and_ perfect 
sacredness, where the servants of God 
for ever serve Him. We never can by 
our most strenuous observation of the law, 
arrive at a juridical or a forensic right to 
Heaven. But it is just by our observa- 
tion of the law, as a law of piety, and 
purity, and equity, and kindness, that we 
arrive at that personal righteousness, 
which makes us meet for Heaven’s exer- 
_cises and Heaven’s joys—the exercises 
of a morality that is then faultless, the 
joys of a then complete and unsullied 
virtue. Virtue, when regarded as com- 

osing that assemblage of personal qua- 
Rites which we must carry with us to 
Heaven, has all the paramount import- 
ance which it ever had. And so while 


THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 


125. 


by one passage of the New Testament, 
the law mm reference to the former end 1s 
set aside, and Christ put in its room—by 
another passage, the law in reference to 
the latter end is retained ; and we accord- 
ingly read, that “the end of the com- 
mandment is charity out of a pure heart, 
and of a good conscience, and of faith 
unfeigned.” , 

We have deemed it necessary to say 
thus much in vindication, for the advo- 
cates and expounders of that system which 
is commonly known by the name of “ the 
evangelical.” They are still much mis- 
conceived and misrepresented in general 
society—as men whose preaching is in- 
jurious to the cause of good morals, and 
whose doctrine sheds a withering mil- 
dew over the virtues of our population. 
Their doctrine 1s manifestly popular ; 
but the imagination of many is, that this 
is because impunity and indulgence for 
sin are popular. Even the semblance 
of a pure moral indignation does mix it- 
self occasionally with this antipathy to 
the gospel of Jesus Christ; and so forms 
part of that subtle delusion, which alien- 
atea from evangelical preaching, the 
respect of many of the most intelligent, 
as well as the patronage of the most in- 
fluential in our land. 


Let us conclude these remarks with 
two distinct particulars. First, then, 
know, that the legal right is what you 
cannot work for; but that in the gospel 
of Jesus Christ it is freely offered for 
your acceptance. ‘I'he very essence, we 
apprehend, of the gospel, lies in this 
offer. We there read of the gift of 
righteousness ; or that gift, by which 
there is conveyed to you, the privilege 
of a rightful admittance into Heaven. 
Be assured that you waste your efforts 
on a hopeless impracticability, when you 
labour to win this privilege for your- 
selves. Receive Christ by faith; and 
lay a confident hold on the propitiation 
made by that Saviour, who “ became sin 
for you although he knew no sin, that 
you might be made the righteousness of 
God in him.” 

But, secondly—having thus secured 
what the apostle in one passage calls the 


end of the law ; count it your unceasing 


business, to labour for what the apostle 
in another passage calls the end of the 


126 


zommandment. Though the law has 
zeased as a covenant, it has not ceased 
as a rule of life. ‘hough it can no 
longer be the instrument by which you 
shall obtain a legal plea for Heaven, it 
_is still the instrument by which you shall 
obtain that preparation which is as indis- 
pensable as a plea—even the preparation 
of Heaven’s character and of Heaven’s 
virtue. Greatly do they mistake the 
whole design and economy of the gos- 
pel, who think that it brmgs any exemp- 
tion from the services of righteousness 
along with it. There is, in truth, a busier 
and a more abundant service than before; 
and the only distinction is, that, whereas 
under the one dispensation you served in 
the oldness of the letter, under the other 
dispensation you serve in the newness 
of the spirit. The obedience now is of 
a more refined, and pure, and exalted 
character, than ever was obedience then. 
It is obedience altogether divested of that 
mercenary character, which never ceases 
to adhere to it, so long as viewed legally, 
it is regarded but as the term of a bar- 
gain. Instead of a constrained stipula- 
tion, it becomes a spontaneous offering 
of love and of loyalty ; and, proceeding 
as it does from the new taste and desire 
of a heart now emancipated from the 
bondage and the terror of a felt condem- 
nation, it is as unlike to what it formerly 
was as the obedience of a seraph is un- 


THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 


[SERM. 


like to that of a slave. And te assured, 
that, unless this new obedience is entered 
on, you have no part nor interest in the 
gospel of Jesus Christ. ‘That gospel 
which bringeth salvation, bringeth a pre- 
sent salvation, as well as a future one; 
and they who are the subjects of it, are 
under promise of deliverance from the 
power of sin here, as well as have the 
assured prospect of deliverance from the 
punishment of sin hereafter. O let us 
then do honour to the faith that we pro- 
fess, by our abounding in those fruits of 
righteousness which emanate therefrom. 
And never let gainsayers have to allege 
of that holy name by which we are called, 
that it is prostituted by those who wear 
it, into a license for iniquity. Let the 
faith of the gospel approve itself im our 
hearts, to bring along with it the charm 
and the efficacy of a new moral existence. 
And, in our individual case, let the mys- 
tery be realised of our not boasting in 
the works of the law as forming our 
rightful claim for Heaven, and yet of our 
having become the workmanship of God, 
and our being created in Christ Jesus 
unto good works—so as that they form 
the very business and ornament of our 
lives. ‘Thus shall our light-shine before 
men, and others seeing our good works 
shall glorify our Father who is in Hea- 
ven. 


SERMON XVII. 


On Faith and Repentance. 


“ Testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith towards 
our Lord Jesus Christ.”—Acrts xx. 21. 


Ir has been made a great question 
among theologians, whether faith or re- 
pentance comes first? Now though, 
practically, faith on the one hand has a 
great influence upon repentance; and, 
on the other hand, repentance has also a 

reat influence upon faith—yet we do 
not hold it indispensable to make a full 
settlement, or a full statement, in your 
hearing, of the order of precedency be- 
tween them. Did we attempt fully to 


propound this argument here, we should 
find that altogether it was a great deal 
too subtle for the pulpit; and we there 
fore satisfy ourselves for the present with 
the following deliverance. No man can 
begin either the work of faith, or the 
work of repentance, too soon; and he 
should not wait for the one, ere the other 
shall be entered on. There should be 
no putting off, for the sake of any ad- 
justment of this sort. If told to believe, 





he should stir ap all that is in him— 
whether much or little—all that is al- 
ready in him, that he might flee for re- 
fuge to the hope set before him in the 
gospel. If told to repent, he should also 
stir up all that is in him, that he might 
haste and make no delay to keep the 
commandment. When he hears the 
tidings of great joy, his duty is to enter- 
tain them. When he hears the call of 
turning unto God, his as instant duty is 
to cease to do evil and learn to do well. 
We shall not therefore discuss the order 
of these two christian graces; but, falling 
im with the actual order set before us by 
the apostle in the text, present you, first 
with our observations on repentance 
towards God, and secondly with our ob- 
servations on faith towards our Lord 
Jesus Christ. This is the same apostle, 
who, in describing how it was that he 
executed the message wherewith he had 
been entrusted, tells us of his having 
showed both to Jews and Gentiles, that 
they should repent and turn unto God 
and do works meet for repentance. 


I. To repent of sin, is something more 
than to grieve for it. It is to turn from 
it. It is something more than to regret 
your sins—it is to renounce them. Re- 
pentance may begin with sorrow, but it 
does not end there. Sorrow of itself is 
not repentance ; it only works repentance. 
And healone fulfils this work, who gives 
up the evil of his doings, and enters with 
full purpose of heart on a life of new 
obedience. 

We have just adverted to the question, 
whether faith or repentance comes first. 
And there has been another question 
stirred—which part of repentance comes 
first, or which part is it that comes be- 
fore the other. Does it not first begin 
with the heart, and then take effect upon 
the history? Must not the work com- 
mence with the desires of the inner 
man; and then go forth in regular order, 
so as to tell on the deeds of the outer 

an? 

And is it not preposterous, some have 

agined, to urge on our hearers the pal- 

ble reformation of their conduct, ere 

e have made sure that a process of re- 
generation within has really been entered 
yn? We answer, no; and we think 
that in this matter a sensitive and mis- 


ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. 











127 


applied orthodoxy has done a great deal 
of mischief, and that the systems and 
speculations of theology have been often 
so conducted as greatly to embarrass and 
to cast entanglements on the practical 
work of christianization. What we have 
said before, we say again. As much as 
lies in them let-every man believe as he 
can, and let every man also repent as he 
can. It is not preposterous, it is in the 
order of nature, and there is nothing con- 
trary to it in the order of grace—that 
men should be called upon at the very 
outset of their repentance, and, as if it 
were the first footstep of their enterprise 
on which they had embarked, to give up 
the evil of their ways and the evil of their 
doings, and to put their palpable iniqui- 
ties away from them. ‘This plain busi- 
ness ought not to be suspended on any 
controversy, about what man can do, 
or what he cannot do. ‘The terrors 
of the law can restrain a thief from open 
depredations ; and why might he not be 
adjured by the terrors of the Lord, to 
give up his secret purloinings or his 
midnight robberies? ‘The shame of ex- 
posure will keep many a transgressor 
from the indulgence of licentiousness in 
the face of day ; and why might he not 
be told, on the dread solemnies of that 
coming judgment when many shall 
awaken to shame and everlasting con- 
tempt, to give up all the abominable 
works of darkness? If told of poison in 
the cup, however otherwise alluring to 
his taste, the most inveterate of drunkards 
would stay his ravenous appetite, and 
show he had the power to refrain from 
it; and why might not the same power 
be manifested and put forth, when told, 
that, by every new act of intoxication, he 
nourisheth within his heart the worm 
that dieth not—he kindles into greater 
fierceness that fire which never shall be 
quenched 2? If the prospect of the male- 
factor’s cell, and the execution which 
follows, be that which terrifies many 
thousands in society from the perpetra- 
tion of crimes against the state—might 
not the prospect of that living lake, the 
lake of agony and vengeance, into which 
all the children of iniquity will be cast, 
have the like effect in terrifying men 
from their disobedience and their daring 
criminalities against the majesty of Heav- 
en’s Lawgiver? In preaching repen- 


128 


tance then, let us strike an immediate 
blow, and sound an immediate alarm 
against all the deeds of human wicked- 
ness. We even now then, and without 
waiting for any order of precedency, as 
for principles first and performances after- 
wards—we even now call for such _per- 
formances as ye can set your hand to; 
and that though, at the first shaking 
of the dry bones, we should behold 
nothing else than the deeds of an out- 
ward reformation. Still we bid, and that 
too their instant, their peremptory compli- 
ance, when we tell the thief to give 
up his depredations ; and the drunkard 
to give up his riotous excesses; and the 
impure to give up his secret abomina- 
tions; and the unfair dealer to’ give 
up his dishonesties; and the undutiful 
son or daughter to give up their contempt 
and disobedience of parents ; and the liar 
to give up his falsehoods, and his frauds ; 
and the swearer to give up his daring 
liberties with the name of God; and the 
sabbath-breaker to give up his no less 
daring liberties with the day of God— 
even that God, who, though he dwelleth 
in heaven, looketh down upon earth, alike 
‘jealous of his day and of his name. 
Against one and all of these iniquities, 
we would lift the trumpet and spare not. 
In reference to one and all of them, 
we say go and sin no more. There 
must be no delay, no parrying. It must 
be the speed of an instantaneous flight, 
like that of men running for their lives 
from the awful wrath of God, which 
is upon the soul of every one that doeth 
evil. If ye will not forsake these evil 
doings, the vengeance of Him, who is as 
a consuming fire will overtake you. 
Repent then even now of all this your 
wickedness, that is to say, renounce it— 
else there is not even the beginning of a 
good change upon you. From this mo- 
ment cease to do evil, and learn to do 
works. meet for repentance. 


We.are aware, there is a theology | 


which undervalues these reformations. 
And the reason is that many are the 
thousands of human society, who stand 
in no need of being thus reformed ; and 
yet stand chargeable with all the guilt of 
nature’s enmity, and nature’s indifference 
to God. They are neither fraudulent, 
nor intemperate, nor profane; but as 
little, on the other hand, are they godly, 


ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. 


[SERM. 


or have they in them aught like the love 
of God, aught like a sense or a principle 
of godliness. What signifies, it may be 
thought, although the thief should give 
up his stealing, and the drunkard his 
habits of intoxication—if the whole effect 
of the change shall be to transform him 
into one of those decent moral well-living 
citizens, who still are but citizens of 
earth, taking no thought, and feeling no 
care, cither about God or about eternity. 
But mark well a difference here; and if 
you ponder it aright, it may perhaps lead 
the orthodox among you, to have a 
higher respect than heretofore for that 
practical preaching,—the first note of 
whose trumpet, as it were, when sound- 
ing the proclamation to the workers of 
iniquity, is that that iniquity must be 
abandoned. Mark well we say the differ- 
ence between the  conscience-stricken 
man, who has ceased to be a drunkard, 
because the preacher spoke effectually to 
his conscience and to his fears—and the 
‘irreligious man who never was a drunk- 
jard, because his constitutional propensi- 
ties never urged him to the habit, or his 
aversion to all that is disgraceful and un- 
seemly kept him aloof from it. In the 
one case of sobriety, we admit that there 
may be nothing which one can hold 
to be of any religious value, or put to the 
account of religion at all. But in the 
other case of sobriety, it is religion and 
religion alone that has had to do with it. 
The man became sober, because the 
minister told him, and told him truly, 
that all drunkards should be cast into the 
lake which burneth with fire and brim- 
stone--and he was frightened for his 
soul. There is all the difference in the 
world, between the man who has been 
sober all his days though he never thinks 
of God, and the man who has become 
sober because he is afraid of God—or _ 
between the man, who, constitutionally 
upright and temperate, never once trem- 
bled at the thought of hell; and the man, 
who renounces his dissipations and his 








| dishonesties, because this thought has 


been infixed into his heart by words 
uttered from the pulpit, and now pursues 
and agonises him like an arrow sticking 
fast. 

It is this which makes a total difference’ 
between the two cases, between the one 
man’s sobriety anc the other man’s so- 





oe Ls Or 


a, 


fs 


VIL] 


briety. In deed and in outward descrip- 
ton, they form one and the same virtue ; 
but in spirit and character, they are as 
unlike as possible. -There is no religion 
in the one sobriety. The other sobriety 
1s entered on, under the force of a reli- 
gious consideration—in the spirit and un- 
der the visitation of a religious earnest- 
ness. The former is the sobriety of a 
man who never thinks either of heaven 
or of hell. The latter is like the first 
movement of one, who is fleeing from 
hell and seeking after heaven. It is the 
first footstep, as it were, of his christian 
education. God forbid that it should be 
considered as the whole of it, or that any 
trembling sinner should have the misfor- 
tune to sit under a minister, who can tell 
him no more than this of the way of sal- 
vation. He is but yet at the alphabet of 
christianity ; and let him not learn the 


alphabet imperfectly, in our hurry to get 


him onward to the higher lessons of it. 
He has not yet entered into reconciliation 
with God; but look to the expression of 
our text “repentance towards”—he is 
moving towards God, and that is what 
the man of mere constitutional upright- 
ness, Or constitutional sobriety, is not at 
all thinking of. He is not yet a citizen 
of Zion; but leave his conscience to its 
workings, and let it tell in the reforma- 
tion of its habits; and he is seeking to- 


wards Zion and his face is thitherwards. 


What he is now doing, and this you can- 
not say for the other, he is doing unto 
God. He who said, “a cup of cold 
water given to a disciple for his sake 
shall have its reward,” will not despise 
this day of small things. He will not 
break this bruised reed, nor quench this 
smoking flax ; but at once pities, and is 


pleased, with this incipient effort of a 


trembling penitent—this shaking of his 
dry bones, however proud theology may 
scowl upon it. The science taught in our 
nalls of divinity may find it a thing of 
difficult adjustment, and be at a loss what 
to make of the phenomenon—the exter- 
nal reformation of a man, not yet initiat- 
ed for aught we know, even in the first 
principles of orthodoxy ; but only, under 


the impulse of nature’s conscience and 


nature’s fears, awakening to a sense of 


his danger and his guilt, and breaking 


off from the sins and the profligacies of 
other days. Now what we say is—let 
17 


ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. 


129 


no embarrassment be thrown in that 
man’s way. Nay leave him alone, rather 
than that his activities should be over- 
borne under the weight of cur pon- 
derous theological systems. Let him not 
be interrupted in the midst of his doings ; 
nor the dread of legality freeze into a 
sort of suspended animation, that soul 
which was awakening in its own way to 
the reality of eternal things. Let no 
cabalistic orthodoxy put its restraints up- 
on him—leading him and the world at 
large, to misapprehend the real character 
and design of the gospel of Jesus Christ, 
which is to extirpate moral evil from the 
earth, and substitute in its place the reign 
of truth and charity and righteousness. 
But the matter does not stop here. 
Though repentance begins thus, it does 
not end thus. Christianity is not satis- 
fied with a mere work of external refor- 
mation ; and, what is more, neither will 
the man’s own conscience be satisfied. 
Let his be but honest endeavours, and ho- 
nest fears; and the unavoidable effect 
will be, that the more he does to obtain 
peace with his offended God, the more 
he feels the utter msufficiency of all his, 
doings. The more he rises in his deeds 
of obedience to the law, the more the law 
rises In its demands upon him. He may 
have given up to drink, or to swear, or 
to speak evil of his neighbour, or to wan- 
der abroad in daring profanation on the 
sabbath ; but he is deeply conscious, nay 
more conscious than ever, that he has 
not yet compassed the whole length and 
breadth of the divine commandments. 
What happened to Paul happens also to 
him—“ But when the commandment 
came, sin revived and I died.” ‘The 
meaning of this is, the commandment 
came—that is a sense of its purity, of its 
elevation, of its exceeding height above 
all the possibilities of human performance, 
now visited his heart; and this larger 
view of the commandment, gave him a 
larger view of his own exceeding distance 
and deficiency therefrom; and thus sin re- 
vived, or a sense of his own exceeding 
sinfulness was more alive and awake than 
ever in his bosom; and so he died, or 
felt more emphatically than ever that the 
law’s condemnation to death was upon 
him, and that he could not with all his 
efforts and all his aspirations, make his 
escape fromit. It is well that he has put 


130 


the evil of his outward doings away from 
him. It is well, that, by the shaking of 
the dead bones, some larger clods, as it 
were, of earthliness and corruption, have 
thus been shaken off, and no longer ad- 
‘here to him. It is very well that the 
matter has proceeded thus far; and that 
we can speak of this one external refor- 
mation, of that other literal work of obe- 
dience. But with all this, he may be a 
dead man still. The life of obedience 
may not be there. The love, without 
which a willing obedience is impossible, 
may be altogether wanting. The hand 
may have been compelled, under the in- 
fluence of terror, to its reluctant task ; but 
the heart refuses to go along with it. 
_ Still it is well, that, when the law, with 
the voice and authority of a school-mas- 
ter, told him to give up this one and that 
other disobedience, he obeyed the lesson 
and gave them up accordingly. But 
this is not the only lesson which the law 
gives him. It tells him of the uncancel- 
ed guilt of his past life, which he can 
make no atonement for. It tells him of a 
curse and of a condemnation, which, un- 
der the government of a righteous Sover- 
eign, cannot be recalled. It tells him of 
its own sacredness—the sacredness of the 
Jaw, and the dread majesty of the law- 
giver. It reveals to him heights of obe- 
dience; which, to corrupt man, are inac- 
cessible ; and lets him know that, toil as 
he may beneath these heights, he, with 
all his pains and all his efforts, is but mul- 
tiplying his transgressions, and becoming 
every day a deadlier offender than before. 
It reveals God to him as an enemy and 
an avenger; and yet bids him love this 
God—love the being, whom, with a just 
sense of his own sinfulness, he cannot 
but regard, as a strong man armed to de- 
stroy him. 

We repeat it is well that the first les- 
son should have been listened to, and in 
some measure obeyed. It forms a sort 
of guarantee that the other lessons will 
be of effect also—that the man’s con- 
science will become every day more ten- 
der—that he will see more and more of 
the perfection of God’s law, and of his 
own guiltiness—that, in proportion as he 
multiplies his doings, he will be made 
more clearly to perceive the excess of 
the law’s requirements above all that he 
can do; so that every new day swells 


ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. 


{SERM. 


the account of his debt and of his de- 
ficiency ; and, in spite of all his ef- 
forts, the conviction grows upon him 
—that he is a helpless and a_hope- 
less outcast from the favour of God, and 
from the joys of a blissful eternity. And 
here the question comes, what is to be 
the end of this? It is clear that every 
thing the man does, but aggravates his 
despair. He is sinking deeper and 
deeper every day, into an abyss of des- 
pondency. His prospects become blacker | 
with every attempt he makes to relieve — 
himself—fighting as it were against a 
barrier through which he cannot make 
his way, while the penalties of an unful- 
filled law rise like a wall of fire in 
threatening array against him. It is 
perfectly clearthat with but the one lesson 
of repentance, there is no getting on. 
Repentance is a return to that law from 
which we had departed. But when the 
law wont recall its own threats of ven- | 
geance—it wont cancel its own long and 
fearful account against us—it wont look 
on and be silent, while we are taking on 
new debts ; and by new delinquencies of 
thought word and deed, come day after 
day under a heavier reckoning and re- 
sponsibility than before. The law is not — 
of that supple pliant accommodating 
character, not of such a flexible and 
yielding disposition, so full of complai- 
sance and facility and good-natured con- 
nivance—that, for the sake of our con- 
venience, it will let down its own exae- 
tions; or become a precarious, nay a 
polluted thing, by lowering and suiting 
its precepts to our powers and possibili- 
ties of obedience. The law utterly re- 
fuses to make any half-way compromise 
of this sort. It insists, and that most*ri- 
gidly, on its own terms ; and if we have 
only the law to deal with, we see not» 
how we can fling off the burden and the 
terror of this lawful deliverance from 
our own persons—“ cursed is every one ~ 
who continueth not in all the words of 
this book to do them.” If we have do- 
ings with no other party than the law, 
or with God viewed as a Lawgiver, we 
are truly placed in a most mextricable 
dilemma. If we have no other than one 
lesson to work at, even the lesson of re- 
pentance, which is merely coming back 
again to the law, we are fairly shut up, and 
that to endless and unescapable despair. 


- xvinJ 


But, blessed be God, there isanother party 
_ beside the law, that we are called upon to 
do with ; and to which the law itself is our 
conductor and our guide—a school-master 
for bringing us to Christ, at whose hands 
we are provided with an outlet and a 
place of refuge—and we are still shut 
up no doubt, not to despair however, as 
heretofore, but shut up by the terrors of 
the law to the faith of the gospel. And, 
blessed be God, it is not one lesson only 
that is prescribed—and that a lesson, to 
which, if we are confined, and without 
the light breaking in upon us of any 
other truth or from any other quarter, 
then the longer we learn at it the more 
wretched we shall be; but, ever blessed 
be God, there is another lesson: And 
the two so fitted, so helpful to each other, 
that the work of both, when they are 
thus joined together, goes on most pros- 
perously: And so the same apostle who 
taught and testified repentance towards 
God, taught and testified also faith to- 
wards our Lord Jesus Christ. 

_ IL. But it is now high time to enter on 
this second lesson—a lesson of greatest 
preciousness. We must be brief in our 
exposition of it; but let us at the same 
time be as plain as possible. It is not a 
lesson that can be set forth advantage- 
ously in the wisdom of man’s words ; 
nor is it the way of securing its accep- 
tance, that it should be garnished with 
human eloquence, or made the subject of 
any tasteful and high-wrought descrip- 
tion for the entertainment of the human 
fancy—when the weight of its own eter- 
nal importance should be enough to re- 
tommend it, to the attention and the con- 
sciences of men. Let us speak to your 
experience. If laden with debt so enor- 
mous and so overwhelming, that the in- 
dustry of a whole life could work out no 
sensible abatement of it—if the wages of 
the day did not even suffice for the ex- 
venditure of the day, so that the longer 
you lived, the claims which justice had 
against you became every day heavier 
than before—if thus crushed under a 
load of accumulating obligations, with 
no prospect of relief or of escape from 
them—We ask you to conceive, with 
what heart or what alacrity, you could 
address yourself to the labours of your 
daily occupation? What an unhappy 
doom, the doom of a weary, heartless, 


ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. 


13] 


heavy laden  existence-—overtasked— 
overtoiled—pressed above strength and 
beyond measure, and yet every day be- 
coming a poorer man than before—the 
Spirit sunken under the consciousness of 
increasing debt, and the body exhausted 
by ceaseless and sore drudgery—the 
whole proceeds of his industry torn from 
his hands by the gripe of creditors, who, 
in spite of all their exactions, can yet ex- 
hibit at every week or every month’s end 
a deadlier count and reckoning than be- 
fore. How vain to tell that man, to put 
forth more strength, or give more time 
or more diligence to the business of his 
calling—with such a mountain weighing 
upon him. ‘There is positively no en- 
couragement in-any of these circum- 
stances to industry at all. The heart is 
made heavy; the hand is slackened ; 
and the whole man powerless and para- 
lysed, gives himself up to the apathy and 
indolence of despair. And yet there is 
a method by which this wretched and un- 
done being, might be charmed and 
evoked into a life of activity; and an in- 
Spiring energy be put into his heart, that 
would absolutely make a new creature 
of him. If that debt were but cleared 
away—if a kind and able friend were to 
take it upon himself, and pay the last far- 
thing of it—if a full and free discharge 
were put into his hand; and he, over 
and above, were gifted with the means 
of entering on a walk of sure profit, 
where, with care and industry on his 
part, he could make certain of a compe- 
tency to himself and a rich inheritance 
to his family— Who does not see that, on 
the moment of being restored to hope, 
the man is restored to willing and active 
exertion also? Who does not see, that 
when this weight is lifted off, the man 
goes forth in all the vigour and alacrity 
of his now emancipated powers—reani- 
mated to industry, because now unshack- 
led from all his encumbrances, and with 
the prospect of a sufficiency and an in- 
dependence now set before him ? 

And thus, (God grant that you may 
not only understand but believe what we 
say, for we now speak of the matters 
erry belong to the very turning point 
of a man’s salvation) and thus is the debt 
between us and our -awgiver in Heaven 
cleared away. The great surety for sin- 
ners took it all upon Himself. God laid 


132 


on Him the iniquities of us all; and He 
became sin for us though He knew no 
sin, that we might be made the righteous- 
ness of God in Him. That we might 
be freed from the curse of the law, did 
the only beloved Son of God become a 
curse for us; and on the accursed tree, 
did He bear the full weight of the con- 
demnation and the penalty, that we else 
should have borne. He was stricken for 
our iniquities. He was smitten for our 
transgressions. The chastisement of our 
peace was laid upon Him; and, in bow- 
ing Himself down to the burden of a 
world’s atonement, did He pour out his 
soul even unto the death for us. In that 
hour of darkness and mystery, when the 
great lawgiver wakened the sword of 
vengeance against His fellow—then it 
was that our debt was paid to the last 
farthing ; for then it was, that the Cap- 
tain of our salvation, drunk to its last 
dregs that cup which the Father had put 
into His hands. Then it was, that our 
discharge was fully made out; and, 
nearken to us—if ye believe not these 
tidings of great joy, you remain listless 
or alienated or heavy laden as before ; 
but oh the power and victory of faith! 
what a mountain is lifted off by it, and 
how the sinner’s soul breaks forth as if 
into a land of light and love and liberty, 
when, enabled to lay hold on Christ, the 
discharge is put into his hands, and he 
now rests in the assurance that all is clear 
with God. And there is a great deal 
more than the cancelment of our debt; 
for He not only made an end of trans- 
gression but He brought in an everlast- 
ing righteousness. Mark the distinct- 
ness of these two parts of salvation.— 
‘I'he mere blotting out of your sins might 
have rescued you from Hell; but, alone 
and of itself and without something more, 
it would have given you no part of the 
inheritance that has been purchased for 
you in Heaven. It might have shut 
against you the gate of Hell, because 
ransomed from that awful and everlasting 
prison house; but it would not have 
opened the gate of Heaven, that the ran- 
somed of the Lord might enter in. But, 
* blessed be God’s eternal Son, He has fin- 
ished the work which was given Him to 
do. He has not been satisfied with doing 
it by halves. He has made out for us a 
complete salvation. He has not only 


ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. 


[SERM. 


suffered, but He has served for us; and, 
instead of leaving us midway between 
Hell and Heaven, He has done more 
than redeem us from the one, by His own 
full endurance of the penalties of that law 
which we had broken—He has earned 
for us the reward of a sure and blissful 
inheritance in the other, by His own per- 
fect obedience to all the precepts of that 
Law, which He has magnified and made 
honourable. Now, observe the whole 
extent of that relief and that enlargement 
which He has procured, for all who ac- 
cept of Him as He is offered in the gos- 
pel. There is not only put into their 
hands, a discharge from that debt which 
He has paid for them; but there is put 
into their hands, a title-deed of entry into 
that glorious and everlasting inhezitancs, 
which He has won for them. It were 
not enough, that, disburdened from deht, 
you were then left as if to start fair and 
work out for yourselves the rewards of 
eternity. Who does not see, that, ere 
one day rolled over your heads, you 
would again fall short of the command- 
ment—again dishonour that law, which 
utterly refuses to dishonour. itself, by let- 
ting down the standard of its own abso- 
lute perfection—again run a new score, 
as it were, of debt and of deficiency— 
again become a wretched outcast of con- 
demnation ; haunted as before by the per- 
petual consciousness of your own imper- 
fection; and having no rest to the soles 
of your feet, because still without any 
solid foundation of peace or confidence 
in God. And be assured that you never 
will know what it is to be fully and firmly 
at rest—all, as heretofore, will be misgiv- 
ing and perplexity and despair, till reliev- 
ed from the task of establishing a right- - 
eousness of your own. That was the 
old stumbling-block of the Jews; and it 
will prove a stumbling-block to you also, 
if you set out on the imagination, now 
that Christ has delivered you from Hell 
by His sufferings, you will earn a right 
to Heaven by your own services. You 
must look to Christ for both. You have ~ 
as much need of the services of Christ 
for the one, as you have of the sufferings 
of Christ for the other. You can no 
more work out a righteousness for your- 
selves, than you can work out a redemp- 
tion for yourselves ; and accordingly we 
read of Christ being made unto us right- 


“ae + 


XVi1.] 


— eousness as well as redemption. If you 


obtain a discharge from Hell, it is not be- 
cause you have paid the debt; but be- 
cause Christ hath paid it for you—if you 


‘obtain a right of entry into Heaven, it is 


not because you have performed the 
requisite obedience; but because Christ 
hath performed it for you. In a word, 
you must look for Heaven, not as the 
wages of your own righteousness, but, 
alone and altogether, as the wages of the 
righteousness of Christ. For your de- 
liverance from the coming wrath, trust to 
the sufficiency of His atonement—for 
your participation in that fulness of joy 
which is at God’s right hand, trust to 
the sufficiency of His righteousness.— 
And, in answer to the frequent question 
of the ignorant or the half-informed. in 
the nature of the gospel, who, after the 
matter is explained thus far are often 
heard to ask. have we no-further concern 
then with a work of righteousness our- 
selves; or have we no more to do with 
the law of God? No more to do with it, 
as a covenant of works. Nothing what- 
ever to do with it, on the old footing, and 
under the old legal economy of Do this 
and live. Absolutely nothing at all to 
do with it, in the way of building up a 
plea, a meritorious plea, on which you 
might challenge a place in the kingdom 
of Heaven, or put in a claim for it that 
shall avail against the judgment of a 
righteous God. Nothing to do with it, 
in the purpose and on the principle of 
deserving Heaven for yourselves; but, 
mark us well, every thing to do with it 
mn the purpose and on the principle of 
pleasing Him who has deserved Heaven 
for you. 

Christ now stands in the place of the 
law; and, to use the image of the apostle, 
you, dissevered from the Jaw, your old 

usband, are married to another, even 
Christ; but for what end ?—that you 
may bring forth fruit unto God. Your 
obedience is as indispensable as before ; 
but then it fulfils a different office from 
what it should have done before. The 
purpose of your obedience now, is, not 


to make you meet in law—Christ has 


settled all its accounts for you—but the 
purpose of your obedience now, is, to 
make you meet in person, or meet in 
character, for Heaven; that you may 
become like-minded with those who are 


ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE, 


| 


133 


already there—with God .he Father— 
with Christ, who is the brightness of 
His Father’s glory, and the express 
image of His person—with the unfallen 
angels, who still retain that resemblance 
to their Maker in which they were cre- 
ated—with the spirits of just men made 
perfect, who had lost this resemblance, 
and were again renewed in righteous- 
ness and holiness. And this renewal we 
must all undergo also. To become the 
members of Heaven’s family, we must 
acquire the family likeness of Heaven. 
It is said of Heaven, that it is the land 
of uprightness ; and to be admitted there, 
you must become upright. It is said of 
Heaven, there thy servants serve thee ; 
to be admitted there, you must become 
the servants of God. It is said of Hea- 
ven, that nothing which defileth can enter 
there ; and you to be qualified for that 
entrance, must cleanse yourselves from 
all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, 
and your holiness must be perfected. It 
is said of Heaven, that its rejoicing inha- 
bitants cease not day nor night to glorify 
the Father and the Son, insomuch, that 
the high arches of the upper sanctuary 
ring with jubilee, and loud hosannas fill 
the eternal regions ; and you, to partici- 
pate in the joys and the exercises of that 
blissful land, must have the love of God 
shed abroad in your hearts, and learn in 
spirit and in truth to worship Him.— 
Finally, it is said of Heaven, that there 
charity never faileth ; and you, to be 
qualified for sitting down in its celestial 
company, must know what it is to have 
a heart that feels for all, and a hand in 
readiness to succour and to serve all. 
Justification, so far from being the whole 
of your Christianity, is but the beginning 
of it ; and so far from Christianity having 
nothing to do with Sanctification, which 
is the entire conformity of your heart and 
life to the law, this sanctification is the 
great design, the great end of Christian- 
ity—the main purpose for which Christ 
died, even to purify unto Himself a pecu- 
liar people zealous of good works. For 
this object you put yourselves into the 
hand of the Saviour, and he puts into 
your hands a busy work of obedience, 
“Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever 
[command you.” You do not renounce 
service in passing from the law to the 
gospel. You only change the principle 


134 IMMEDIATE REWARD OF OBEDIENCE. [SERM. 


of the service; and serve now, not with | love Him back again. There is an ala- 
the oldness of the letter, but with the new- crity and a good-will that you had not 
ness of the spirit. The difference is as_ before; for now God makes you willing 
great, as between the reluctant submis- in the day of His power—working ‘in 
sion of a slave, and the prompt and cheer- | you to will, as well as to do of His good 
ful obedience of a friend and of a freed- pleasure. There is a delight, a sponta- 
man. There isa felt security which you neous and Heaven-born delight im the 
had not before; for now you know that service of God which you had not be- 
the all-powerful Mediator is upon your fore; for now He puts the law into your 
side. There isa strength which you had inward part, or, in other words, He en- 
not before ; for now there isa spirit given lists your affections and your taste on the 
to help your infirmities, on which you side of obedience—so that what before 
cannot too certainly depend, and which | was a weariness, or a drudgery, or a 
you cannot too confidently pray for. | galling bondage, becomes your meat and 
There is a love which you had not be-| drink, a congenial and much-loved em- 
fore; for now faith has opened a foun-| ployment. You serve God because you 
tain of gratitude in the heart; and you,|love Him. You do His will because 
believing the love that God has to you, | you delight to do Him honour. 


SERMON XVIUIL. 


The immediate Reward of Obedience. 


“In keeping of them there is great reward.’—Psa_LM xix. II. 


You will observe the Psalmist does not | loved.” The hundred and nineteenth ~ 
say in these words, that after the keep- | Psalm is full of such testimonies ; and so, 
ing of the commandments there is great | indeed, in the one from which our text 
reward—but that im the keeping of them |is taken, there is most distinct affirma: 
there is great reward; and the lesson |tion, not of a future reward from ow 
which we mean to urge from this is, | observation of God’s will, but of an im 
that, altogether beside any future recom-| mediate joy. The statutes of the Lord 
pense which may be annexed to obedi-|are spoken of not merely as right, but as 
ence, there is in the very work of obe-| rejoicing the heart, as more to be desired 
dience a present recreation. The reward |than gold, yea, much fine gold; and 
spoken of in the text, is the pleasure | sweeter also than honey, and the honey- 
which lies in the service of God now; |comb—all marking a sweetness and a 
and not in the payment which is ju-| satisfaction in the work of virtue itself, 
dicially made for it afterwards. It is|apart from any coming good that may 
the instantaneous delight which springs|accrue from the performance of it—a 
up in the heart, at the moment of well-| current, and not a consequent gratifica- 
doing; and not any subsequent delight | tion, wherewith the spirit is regaled in 
which may have been affixed to it, under | the very midst of the deeds and desires 
the existing economy of nature or Provi-|of righteousness: just as the eye is re- 
dence. And whether this be sustained | galed on the instant by sights of beauty, 
as the meaning or not in the verse that|or the ear by that melody which falls 
is before us—it is at least a meaning | upon it. 
which fully accords both with experience} In the prosecution of this discourse we 
and the doctrine o scipture. “O how]shall first endeavour, shortly to state 
lL love thy law,” marks a present gratifi-} what the ingredients are of the present 
cation in the keeping of it; and so does | reward, which there is in the keeping of 
the passage, that, “I will delight myself }the commandments: And secondly, to 
in thy commandments which I have]state the nature of that future reward 


-the testimony of our conscience.” 


XVII. | 


which cometh after the keeping of the 
commandments; and of what importance 
it is to the real worth and character 
of our obedience, that we should have 
tight apprehensions of this. We shall 
then, in a very few words of practical 
application, advert to the way in which 
the economy of the gospel bears upon this 
whole question. 

This immediate joy which there is in 
the keeping of God’s law, might be re- 
solved, we think, into two leading ingre- 
dients. ‘The first is the happiness that 
flows direct, from the sense of doing 
or having done what is right. It pro- 
ceeds from the testimony of an approving 
conscience. It lies in the satisfaction 
wherewith the ear of the inner man list- 
ens to the inward voice, when it speaks 
in the accents of complacency. This 
was ground of rejoicing to the mind of 
an apostle. “For our rejoicing is this, 
It is 
not a rejoicing that springs altogether 
from the hope of reward ; or because, on 
the recollection of a past integrity or 
a past charity or a past self-denial, there 
is founded the anticipation of a future 
blessedness. There is a blessing in the 
recollection itself. It is precious on its 
own account. It drops as it were an im- 
mediate elixir upon the soul. A good 
conscience is a present as well as a per- 


-petual feast ; and there is a felt and pres- 


ent solace, in the taste and flavour of that 
hidden manna which it administers. It 
affords something more than a clear 
medium, through which we might see a 
coming reward on the distance that lies 
before us. In the very clearness itself, 
there is the enjoyment even now, of 
sweetest sunshine ; and the pleasure of a 
good conscience no more consists alone 
in the hope of a future remuneration, 
than the pain of a bad or an accusing 
conscience consists alone in the dread of 
a future vengeance. There is in remorse 
a present agony, that ‘is distinct from fear. 
There is in the answer of a good con- 
science a present satisfaction, that is dis- 
tinct from hope; and this forms one 
ingredient of that reward, which lies 
even now in the keeping of the com- 
mandments. 

‘But there is still another ingredient. 
Though the acts of the hand be the out- 


ward expressions of virtue, yet they are 


IMMEDIATE REWARD OF OBEDIENCE. 


135 


the affections of the heart which constitute | 
its real and primary essence. Insomuch 
that the love of God is said to be the 
first and greatest of the commandments ; 
and all those commandments that have 
for their object the good of our fellow- 
men, are said by the apostle to be briefly 
comprehended in this saying—“ Thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” 
Now in the play and exercise of love, 
there is instantaneous joy. Love is not 
merely acted on as a_principle—it is 
felt as an emotion; and, save when it 
strays from duty or is checked by disap- 
pointment, it 1s a pleasurable emotion. 
More especially is it so, and that in great 
est pureness and ecstacy, when it goes 
forth in-rejoicing confidence towards God 
—when the heart of the creature rises to 
the Creator, in trust and in tenderness— 
when it can look to the Being who made 
it as a Friend; and throw back the 
willing regards of gratitude upon Him, 
for those kind and fatherly regards that 
He ever casts on His acceptable wor- 
shippers—when from gratitude it rises to 
esteem, and eyes with delighted admira- 
tion the gracefulness and the glory which 
sit on His revealed countenance—-when 
on the aspect of the Divinity, seen with- 
out disturbance and without dread, are 
beheld both the mildness and the majesty 
of worth—and above all when He stands 
forth in the charms of His unspotted holi- 
ness ; and at once transports and solem- 
nizes the soul of -him, whom, whethe1 
by the eye of Faith or the eye of vision, 
He admits to see the moral radiance that 
encircles His throne. There is in all 
this a beautitude of which no adequate 
utterance can be given. It is, in truth, 
the very beautitude of Heaven above ; 
and may be realised, though in fainter 
degree and at broken intervals, upon 
earth below. There be a saintly anda 
select few, who, at times, even on this 
side of the grave, have attained to such 
mysterious elevation; and who also, 
after they have ascended from the heights 
of a more ethereal sacredness, feel, in the 
perennial sense of God’s reconciled pres- 
ence, a gladness which is also perennial. 
If there be not at all times a seraphic 
ecstacy, there is at most times a seraphic 
calmness in their spirits. They have a 
peace which the world knoweth not 

and are not troubled as other men, in 


136 


their midway passage between them and 
Eternity. There is at least a foretaste 
of the coming joy; and if love to God be 
indeed shed abroad in their hearts, it is 
even now the experience of their hearts, 
that, in the keeping of the first and great- 
est commandment, there is indeed a very 
great reward. 

But we shall speak more to the, intel- 
ligence of the general world, if we ex- 
emplify the truth of the text, by the 
second great affection that is required of 
usin the gospel, even the love of our 
neighbour. In the keeping of this com- 
mandment too, there is a great reward. 
We do not insist on the constitutional de- 
light which many have in the mere ac- 
tivities of benevolence, or on the gratifi- 
cation that is thereby afforded even to our 
taste for employment; or on that enjoy- 
ment which is felt by every philanthro- 
pist, when made hopeful or happy by the 
success which has attended his prosper- 
ous management of human nature. ‘l’his 
last is rather a reward that cometh after 
our plans and performances of well-do- 
ing, than one which intermixes with the 
prosecution of them. But what is more 
to the truth of our principle, is the plea- 
sure which is lighted up in the heart on 
the first instant of its felt kindness to- 
wards any creature that breathes—that 
no sooner does the play of cordiality be- 
gin there, than there commences along 
with it a play of purest and most satisfy- 
ing enjoyment—that there is delight in 
the original conceptions of Benevolence, 
and delight also in all its out-goings— 
that whereas malignity and envy and 
anger do rankle the bosom, gratitude and 
goodwill and all the benign affections of 
our nature do rejoice it, being fraught 
with a double blessing, and demonstra- 
ting the lesson of our text by that ample 
share of it, which cometh to the giver, 
and which consists in the happiness that 
redounds to himself from the wish and 
the effort to make others happy. When 
the heart is thus attuned, it is then that 
it tastes of the very truth and substance 
of enjoyment—it is then that the mechan- 
ism of our sentient nature moves sweetly ; 
and that, in the mere concord of its feel- 
ings and faculties, there is unutterable 
joy. It is then that the soul is in its 
wholesome and well-conditioned frame ; 
and indeed, from the very beaming that 


IMMEDIATE REWARD OF JBEDIENCE. 


WERM. 


plays on the human sountenance, we 
may gather how when there is kindness 
within there is comfort within. The 
inner man feels, that when breathing in 
the element of love, he is breathing in 
an element of light and cheerfulness ; 
and that the happiest mood of the spirit, 
is when it blandly and bounteously de- 
vises for another’s welfare. ‘The selfish- 
ness by which it of old was actuated, is 
now felt to have been a weight anda | 
confinement upon its energies—from 
which when released, it seems as if it 
had just gotten its native elasticity ; and 
so could forthwith expatiate on a field, 
where there was room and liberty and a 
genial atmosphere. It is almost as if a 
stricture upon its faculties had been taken 
off—and it was now restored to alacrity, 
because its own proper force and free- 
dom had been restored to it. Certain it 
is, that, both in the feelings and the out- 
flowings of human sympathy, there is a 
satisfaction which not only blesses our 
companionships on earth, but which we 
shall bear with us to the choirs of Para- 
dise ; and that, beside the goodwill which 
radiates from Heaven’s throne and is re- 
flected back again to Him who sitteth 
thereon, there is a goodwill which passes 
and repasses in busy circulation among 
all the members of Heaven’s family. 
Now of this we have a present foretaste, 
of which even the most unsaintly and 
unregenerate of this world can be made 
to understand. For God, hath not only, 
to bind together a perpetual society in 
Heaven, established there the charity 
that never faileth—but, even for the tem- 
porary purposes of our frail and fleeting 
society on earth, hath spread the many 
thousand charities of home and of neigh- 
bourhood even among the men of our 
ungodly generation. And even to them 
we can confidently appeal for the truth, 
that, in the grovelling pursuits whether 
of sense or avarice, they never experi- 
enced so true a delight, as in those mo-~ 
ments when their spirit was touched into 
sympathy with other spirits than their 
own. There is many a scene of domes- 
tic tenderness on which this principle is 
fully manifested ; and whence we ma 

gather what that is, in which, after al 

the real happiness of our nature lies. It 
is most certainly more in the play of 
kindness to others, than in the secreting 


ee 


XVII | 


or securing of any animal enjoyment to 
ourselves. In the walks of merchandise 
men are to be found, who, among the 
noblest specimens of all that virtue which 
mere nature has to boast of, can, upon 
their own remembrance of their own 
feelings, give the same testimony—who 
perhaps recollect a time, when, on the 
sad occasion of a neighbour’s bankruptcy, 
the principle on which we now insist 
was brought to the trial of their own ob- 
servation—who as they sat in judgment 
over the fortunes of a fallen family, were 
visited with the kindlings of a mercy that 
rejoiced against judgment and prevailed 
above it—who could have exacted all, 
but, in a moment of relenting generosity, 
there wasa gentle force upon their spirits 
which would not let them ; and, in virtue 
of which, they felt and they forgave.— 
We ask, if, in the tenderness and in the 
triumph of that moment, there was not 
ample compensation made for all which 
they surrendered ; or if all the money 


which they made over with their hands, 
* could have purchased one fraction of the 


delight that they had from the mercy 
which then glowed in their bosoms ? 

But we can no longer afford to multi- 
ply these illustrations ; and we trust that 
it will now appear abundantly manifest, 
how, in the exercise of love to our fel- 
lows there is a moral, even as, in the ex- 
ercise of Love to our God, there is a 
spiritual gladness; and how likely it is 
therefore, that when the one is blended 
with the other, or rather when the one 
either originates or issues from the other, 
there is in the keeping of the second, as 
well as of the first law, a very precious 
and withal a present reward. 

There is not a single virtue, when 
looked to in its own independent aspect, 
of which the same thing might not be 
affirmed. ‘They one and all of them 
yield an immediate satisfaction to the 
wearer. There is a certain untroubled 
serenity in truth and in justice—there is 
a felt and native dignity in honour—in 
perfect keeping with this, there is a 
quiet and secure resting-place to the 
inner man in gentleness and humility— 


there is, we shall not say a proud, but at 


least a triumphant complacency in all 
the virtues of self-command—there is a 


cheerfulness to the spirit in the temper- 


ance of the body—there is in purity such 
18 


IMMEDIATE REWARD OF OBEDIENCE, 


137 


a peace as well as transparent beauty and 
loveliness, that it is like breathing in the 
third Heavens instead of this world’s 
gross and troubled atmosphere, when, 
under the guardianship of strictest deli- 
cacy, the heart becomes that hallowed 
abode, in which no wrong or tainted im- 
agination 1s permitted to dwell. These 
and all the other moralities of the human 
character, are what make up the true 
health and harmony of the soul. They 
are the very streams or materials of that 
well, which is struck out in the bosom of 
regenerated man, and which springeth up 
there unto life everlasting. They are 
those fruits of the spirit which are sweet 
unto the taste, and which constitute the 
food and the sustenance of eternity. 
‘he crown that is given in paradise to 
the possessor of these, is neither of gold 
nor of silver ; for these in truth are the 
very graces, of which the crown and all 
its glory is composed. It is a moral 
splendour that is lighted up there. It is 
virtue which blooms and is immortal 
there. It is the felt pleasure that they 
have in goodness here, though’ with a 
sad mixture and mitigation of earthliness 
—this is the very feeling which is trans- 
ported along with the spirits of the good 
to Heaven, and constitutes the very 
essence of Heaven’s blessedness. Never- 
theless, and amid all the obscurations of 
our earthly nature, we have the feeling 
even on this side of death ; and, such as 


‘it is, it forms that present reward which 


there is in the keeping of the command- 
ments. 


II. Now, instead of the reward which 
there is az the keeping of the command- 
ments, let us conceive that there had 
been a reward after the keeping of the 
commandments, and not only so, but 
that it is quite distinct from that enjoy- 
ment of which we have now spoken and 
which lies directly and essentially in the 
obedience itself. Instead of a happiness 
that resides natively, or that comes forth 
immediately, out of the holiness—let it be 
thought of for a moment, as a happiness 
that has been arbitrarily and by divine 
appointment annexed to holiness. ‘This 
can easily be imagined—a Heaven in 
which there may be the delight that be- 
longs to virtue, but which is also peo- 
pled with other charms—where there 


138 
are sights of loveliness, and sounds of 
sweetest harmony—where beside the re- 
creation that there is to the. glorified 
spirit, there is also a recreation to the 
glorified senses ; and the pleasures even 
of taste and intellect are superadded, to 
the ecstasies of a saintly and seraphic 
devotion—a Heaven of space and splen- 
dour and full security from ought that 
can pain or can annoy; and'whose very 
exemption from the sufferings of a hide- 
ous and everlasting hell, is enough to 
call out the desires of all men towards 
it. Now we can well suppose, that the 
one ingredient of its sacredness may be 
lost sight of, in the multitude of those 
other ingredients which compose the 
felicity of such a Paradise as this—or, at 
all events, that it is not the sacredness 
but something else, which gives the 
practical urgency to our efforts and de- 
sires after such a habitation. And, so 
if it still is obedience by which we earn 
Heaven, while its blessedness is fancied 
to consist of things which are distinct 
from the gratification that lies in the 
obedience itself—then virtue becomes 
the work, and a something which is not 
virtue forms the wages. The candidates 
of immortality are so many labourers 
for hire; and Heaven is not looked to, 
or at least not aspired after, as a place 
of holiness—but as the price that is 
given for it. 

Now this is a consideration which you 
do well to ponder, for it really does af- 
fect the whole spirit and character of 
your Christianity. It goes to the very 
root of the principle by which you are 
actuated—and will perhaps lay bare to 
the eye of conscience, how utterly devoid 
you are of that which may be deemed 
the very essence of religion. It is no 
evidence at all of the love which you 
have for a work, that you may have a 
love to its wages. Let two men go forth, 
upon the labour that is prescribed to 
them by their divine lawgiver; and it 
makes all the difference in the world 
between the one man and the other—if 
I shall see the first busied with the la- 
bour because of his liking it, and the 
second because of his looking to the re- 
muneration that comes afterwards. <A 
taste for the employment, is a wholly 
different thing from a taste for its dis- 
tinct and subsequent reward. They may 


a 


IMMEDIATE ”E ARD OF OBEDIENCE, 


[SERM, 


lie as wide of each other, as do the two 
elements of sordidness and sacredness ; 
and those services, which, had they 
proceeded from willingness and taste, 
would have argued a holy creature, may 
in fact be nothing better than the ser- - 
vices of a drivelling and reluctant merce: 
nary. aes 

We might appeal on this subject to the 
understanding of an ordinary workman. 
He knows well the distinction, between 
a love of the work, and a love of the pay- 
ment which is made for it; and it is very 
possible that he has none whatever for 
the one, while all the regards of his 
heart are set upon the other. He would 
rather have the payment without the 
work, to which at the same time he sub- 
mits only because he must, as to any hard 
and hateful necessity. He would feel it — 
a strange proposal, should work be offer- 
ed to him, and, on inquiring about the re- 
ward, should be told, that it was just 
more work ; and that the better he did 
his allotted service,so much the larger 
would be the supply and imposition of 
that same service in all time coming. 
Were this all the encouragement a mas- 
ter had to give, he would soon desert the 
employment ; or if compelled thereto, 
would at least feel the revolt of all his in- 
clinations to be against it’ And what we 
have to ask is, whether with all the com- 
pliances of your outer man, there be not 
the very same revolt of your inward man 
from the service of God—whether, as in 
ordinary labour the wages are given as 
a compensation for the weariness, so with 
you a deliverance from hell and an en- 
trance upon some vague and fancied 
heaven, be not counted upon as the after- 
wages of a labour which at present and 
in itself you feel to be a weariness— 
whether the service of religion be indeed 
your taste, or only your task, at which 
now you slavishly and assiduously ply, 
not for its own sake, but for the sake of 
a something else that lies in the distance 
before you—whether the exercises of 
your practical Christianity be exercises 
unto godliness, or in the hope to make a 
gain of godliness—whether it be a thing 
of delight or a thing of drudgery, extorted 
by a fear from without or excited by a 
feelmg from within—a generous hom- 
age to the glory of the supreme lawgiver 
and the worth of His commandments or 


XVIit.] 


but the worthles policy of a creeping 
and ignoble selfishness ? | 

These are questions which go to the 
very soul of our religion ; and by which we 
are now attempting to probe and to scruti- 
nize among those hidden things of the 
heart, that shall at length be. brought out 
and fully manifested in the day of reck- 
oning. They are the questions by which 
the sterling and the counterfeit in Chris- 
tianity may be determined. ‘The true 
religiousness of a man does not hinge up- 
on what the things be to which he is 
driven, but upon what the things be in 
which he natively and spontaneously de- 
lights. An inferior animal can _ be 
operated upon by pain and terror as well 
as he. It can tremble under the rod of 
authority, when backed with the power 
of enforcement, as well as he. Or it can 
be lured by the gratifications that are 
suited to its nature,as wellashe. ‘These 
are motives, that can be addressed with 
effect, to the mere element of earthliness ; 
and, under their influence, many are the 
formalities of religion which might be 
gone through, and many are its severe 
and servile exactions which might be 
rendered, and much of its seemly ex- 
terior might be put on—as much certain- 
ly as might sustain the appearance of a 
goodly profession. But still the question 
is in reserve, if you delight in the law of 
God after the inward man—if the homage 
you give be that of willing and affection- 
ate loyalty—if the walk you tread upon 
be that of a disinterested rectitude—if you 
have been lured into holiness by the 
beauty of its graces, and not by the bri- 
bery of its gains—For surely there is 
nought in him of the pure or the exalted 
or the heavenly, who labours only for 
the reward that cometh after the com- 
mandment, and neither feels nor under- 
stands how in the commandment there 
should be a great reward. 


Ill. We may now perhaps be able to 
perceive, how the gospel of Jesus Christ 
comes in and adapts itself to the question 
that is now before you. It in the first 
instance then, releases you altogether 
from the law as a covenant. It tells you 
that you are not to work for Heaven, be- 
cause that Heaven is secured to you in 
another way. Instead of coming forth 
with the stipulation of do this and live, it 


IMMEDIATE REWARD OF OBEDIENCE. 


139 


comes forth with the offer of eternal life 
to you as the gift of God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. One reason of this is, 
that God’s jurisprudence requires a high- 
er homage to be rendered to it, than can 
possibly be rendered by the obedience of 
man ; and therefore it will not consent 
so far to honour that obedience, as to be- 
stow upon it the rewards of eternity, on 
the footing’of these being a due and a 
rightful acknowledgment. The law of 
God refuses to let itself down in this way 
to the degraded standard of human vir- 
tue ; and, therefore, instead ‘of holding 
out eternal life to us ds the payment of 
our righteousness it holds out to us for 
the sake of the righteousness of Christ 
| —if we will consent to receive it on this 
footmg. It is thus that the dignity of 
Heaven’s government is secured ; and the 
character of God as a Sovereign is not 
at all compromised, by the terms of ac- 
ceptance which He holds out to the 
guilty who have offended Him. 

But this gospel economy is not more 
for the character of God as a Sovereign 
than it is for the character of man as the 
subject of God’s will. The truth is that 
if you waken up the old economy of do 
this and live, you waken up that very 
spirit of bondage and of low mercenary 
bargaining between thetwo parties, which 
we have already endeavoured to stigma- 
tize. Along with the fears of legality, 
the sordidness of legality is sure to make 
entrance again into the heart ; and we do 
not see how under such a dispensation, 
the pursuit of holiness can be disencum- 
bered from the mixture of such ignoble 
motives, as would make the pursuit a 
selfish and an unholy one. There is no 
access, in such very peculiar circumstan- 
ces as these—there is no access to a sin- 
ner’s heart for the love of holiness in it- 
self, but by making him the free offer of 
Heaven as an unconditional gift ; and at 
the same time making him understand, 
that it is in truth holiness and nothing 
else, which forms the very essence of 
Heaven’s blessedness. 

On this footing let there be a will 
come on the part of men, and there is a 
welcome on the part of God. ‘There is 
no let or hindrance whatever, between 
the sinner and the mercy-seat. You 
have not to work for acceptance, but the 
signal of acceptance is even now. held 





140 


out to you ; and, instead of winning the 
favour of God by your holiness, this fa- 
vour smiles upon you now, and if you 
will only put yourself in its way, it 
will, as its first and very greatest expres- 
sion, put the principle of holiness within 
you. O! then be persuaded to close 
with this free and transforming gospel. 
“Turn unto me now,” says God, “ and 
I will pour out my spirit upon you.” 


That law, which you are now so afraid | 


of, you will be made to love ; and from 
a service of jealousy and constraint, it 
will become a service of willingness. 
Of that splendid Heaven whereof you 


THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 


[SERM. 
have the promise, you will have a pre- 
sent and a most precious sample, in the 
new tastes and new enjoyments of the new 
creature in Jesus Christ our Lord. ‘Tris 
will be in fact the beginning of Heaven 
to your souls—the morning twilight of 
your happy and good eternity. In the 
moral gladness of your renovated nature. 
-you will have the earnest of what is 
coming ; and, on your way through the 
world, will demonstrate how great the 
‘difference is between the low crouching 
and fearful spirit of the legal, and the li- 
beral and generous style of the evangeli- 
‘cal obedience. 


SERMON XIX. 


The necessity of a Personal meetness for Heaven. 


‘(Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance cf 
the saints in light.”—-Co.ossians i. 12. 


To any man who reads a few of these 
verses In connection, it must be obvious 
that the apostle points to something more 
than a judicial meetness for the kingdom 
of Heaven—though without that redemp- 
tion which is through the blood of Jesus, 
even the forgiveness of sin, we could 
1iever have been admitted into heaven. 
But to walk worthy of the Lord, and to 
be fruitful in every good work, and to be 
strengthened with all might—these also 
are so many Ingredients of the meetness. 
There is a personal, as well as a judi- 
cious meetness, indispensable to our be- 
coming partakers of the inheritance of 
the saints; and while there is nothing 
more true, than that it is by faith alone 
that we are justified—it is just as true, 
that, ere we can obtain as the fruit of our 
justification a place in the blessed family 
above, we must be sanctified by faith. 

We often, in the matters of the divine 
administration, separate, in idea, the judi- 
cial from the personal meetness of 
heaven; and we lay an inferior stress 
upon the latter, while we count the for- 
mer to be indispensable. What helps 
us to do this, is the arbitrary connection 
which obtains between a punishment 
and a crime in civil society. A violent 


temper, for example, is its own punish- 
ment; and the misery which it inflicts 
by its own working, may be regarded as 
the natural and necessary effect of the 
temper itself. But it may further urge 
the man who is under its power to the 
transgression of an assault upon his 
neighbour, for which by the law of his 
country he is put into confinement. By 
being thus detached from society, he is 
certainly restrained for the time from a 
similar act of violence against another ; 

and even when sent back from his im- 
prisonment, the fear of its recurrence 
may restrain him, from giving vent in 

extravagant conduct at least. to the out- 
rageous feelings which swell and tumul- 
tuate in his bosom. ‘The object of peace 
and protection to the community is 
gained by this proceeding. But there is 
nothing done by it to mollify the man’s 
temper. ‘There may be something done 
to repress the outbreakings of mischief, 
but nothing done to purify or to dry up the" 
source. ‘Ine man may still continue to 
fester, and to be agitated, and to sustain 
all the miseries of a fierce internal war. 
So that even though the civil punish- 
ment were remitted ; though by the pay- 
ment of a ransom on the part of another 


‘xIxJ 


we obtained a full discharge from the 
penalties of the law—there are other pe- 
nalties annexed by nature to the moral 
infirmities of his character, from which 
the law can obtain for him no deliver- 
ance whatever. It may take off the suf- 
ferings which itself put on ; but from the 
sufferings which essentially attach to the 
constitution of his heart, it cannot save 
him. It cannot save him from the misery 
of his own boisterous and ungovernable 
temper. It cannot save him from the 
wretchedness of being driven, and pur- 
sued, and agonised, by the fury and the 
disorder of his own passions. After it 
has done its uttermost in the way of re- 
lieving him from the burden of every le- 
gal chastisement—after it has reversed 
its sentence, and made it pass into a sen- 
tence of justification—after it has pro- 
nounced on him in such a way, that, fo- 
rensically and in the eye of the law, he 
is a righteous person—after it has 
snatched him from the hand of its own 
executioners—There may be the ven- 
geance of an executioner within, who 
never ceases from the cruelty of his ap- 
plications. The factitious distress which 
the law lays on, the law also can lift off. 
But there is a natural and necessary dis- 
tress appended by a law of our moral 
constitution to the character, and which 
will remain so long as the character re- 
mains. And in the heat and violence of 
an anger, which restraint may confine, 
but which restraint can never extinguish 
—in the conflict and fermentation of pas- 
sions, which live and burn and fluctuate 


within the brooding chambers of his own 
heart—in the affronted pride, and the un- 


quelled resentment, which are at all 
times ready to burst forth on the fancied 
provocation of his fellow men—May this 


- unhappy criminal, assoilzied and justified 


and set free from the arbitrary imposi- 
tions of the law, still feel the burden of a 
curse from which there is no escaping— 


and of a punishment, that, in the lan- 


guage of Cain, is heavier than he can 
bear. 

There is we have every reason to be- 
lieve both an arbitrary and a natural in- 
gredient in the punishment of hell. We 
are apt to look only to the former, and to 
overlook the latter. ‘There is no natural 
connection between moral guilt and the 
application of intense heat to the material 


THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN, 


141 


part of our constitution. But still it is 
the heat, the flame, the fire and brimstone, 
the everlasting burnings—which chiefly 
appal the fancy, and engross the fears of 
the inner man, when he thinks of the 
place of condemnation. Now it is very 
true, that, by a bare act of justification, 
we may be delivered from all that is 
gross and corporeal in these torments.— 
The fire may cease to burn, and the body 
may cease to be agonised. But if the 
character remain, the misery it entails 
on the moral constitution will also re- 
main. A mere deed of acquittal will 
never work out a deliverance from ‘this 
misery. ‘There is no new arrangement 
made known to us in the gospel, by 
which God has dissolved the alliance be- 
tween love and enjoyment on the one 
hand, or between hatred and wretched- 
ness on the other. He has made no 
change, either on the character or on the 
tendency of what is right and wrong.— 
Virtue is as inseparable from happiness 
as before; and vice as inseparable from 
misery as before. The economy of 
grace, made known to us in the New 
Testament, has no more broken up the 
connection between benevolence and 
pleasure, or between malignity and pain 
in a man’s heart—than it has broken up 
the connection between the sight of 
beauty and an emotion of pleasure, or be- 
tween the sight of deformity and an emo- 
tion of disgust. So that, if, by a solitary 
deed of justification, a believer could be 
delivered from the fire of hell, and at the 
same time were to remain in character 
and affection just what he was—a portion 
of the feeling of hell would still adhere to 
him. His body may be at ease from all 
that is painful, in respect of physical sen- 
sation; but his mind, in respect of all 
that is painful in moral sensation, may 
be the seat of a torment as unrelenting as 
ever. All that is mainly and essentially 
hell may still be attached to his person, 
without respite and without mitigation.— 
Let pride come into collision with con- 
tempt; and disdam meet with equal dis- 
dain; and hatred exchange its mutual 
glances, from one unregenerated being to 
another ; and remorse shoot its arrows 
across this dark scene of moral turbu- 
lence and disorder ; and suspicion and 
envy and discontent rankle in the hearts 
of creatures, fired with hostility towards 


142 


God and against each other—these, 
though not one sensation of agony were 
permitted to reach their bodies, are 
enough to make a hell, out of any habita- 
tion of assembled criminals. These form 
the sharpest inflictions of the worm that 
dieth not, and the fiercest materials of the 
fire that is not quenched. ‘The man who 
has these unsanctified feelings in his 
heart, carries the elements of hell about 
with him. He has only to die, and to 
descend with his unrenewed passions into 
that place, where all who have not been 
born again have gone before him. It is 
then that he enters into hell.. In respect 
of the material ingredients of the torture, 
it is certainly conceivable that he may be 
saved by being justified. But in respect 
of the moral ingredients of the torture, 
the passions themselves must be extrica- 
ted from his bosom, and to be saved he 
must be sanctified. 

So it is not enough, you will perceive, 
to obtain a man’s translation from what 
is locally hell to what is locally heaven, 
in order to translate him from the misery 
of the one abode to the happiness of the 
other. A great part of the misery of the 
former, consists in the sufferings, which, 
by the unrepealed law of moral and sen- 
tient nature, are attached to vicious and 
unholy propensities. 


THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 


[SERM. 


these of themselves are enough to bring 
a heavy load of wretchedness on the ac- 
cursed, we ask you to think of the hor- 
rors of an unregulated jail—where bodily 
pain may be conceived to have no place 
—where, if you choose, there is no dis- 
ease, and the wretched inmates are re- 
strained by the terrors of the discipline 
from acts of violence on each other. Let 
corporeal suffering be detached from this 
abode of criminals, as an element of 
wretchedness altogether. Still there are 
other elements, which, working in their 
hearts with unchastened violence, may 
beget such a mental wretchedness—as to 
make it the most expressive way of char- 
acterising this scene of confinement, to 
cal] it a hell upon earth. There may be 
mutual rage and mutual revilings.— 
There may be the misery of revenge un- 
satiated, or of revenge venting itself in 
keenest execrations. There may be the 
uproar of bacchanalian levity, mingled 
with all that is blasphemous in language, 
and all that is fierce or unhallowed in 
desire. ‘There may be passion, whether 
sordid or malicious, raising a tempest in 
the soul before its gratification ; or leav- 
ing after it the bitterness of remorse.— 
There may be the unbridled selfishness 
of beings—each clamouring for his own 


And a great part} object, and only uniting in one cry of 


of the happiness of the latter, consists in| daring and desperate rebellion against 


the enjoyments, which, by the same law | heaven’s law. 


are attached to kind and good and hol 
affections. So that to have the full ad- 
vantage of an inheritance among the 
saints, there must be a meetness of char- 
acter; and for this purpose, to have the 
sinner turned into a saint, is just as es- 
sential as to have a deed of acquittal made 
out—or a sentence of justification passed 
upon him. 

Let us first direct your attention for a 
little longer to the first of those recepta- 
cles ; and, however painful the imagery 
associated with such a contemplation may 
be, the importance of the lesson must be 
held as our apology. We are not to 
overlook the penal character of those 
sufferings, which are endured in the pris- 
on-house of the damned ; and we have 
every reason to believe, that intense 
bodily pain forms one ingredient of this 
bitter and ever-during agony. But there 
are other ingredients ; and, to prove how 


You have only to stamp 


|e . ° 
immortality on these creatures, in order 


to have a hell; and though you were to 
open the prison door and loose them 
from confinement, each would carr 

away with him his own portion of hell. 
You may travel them from one end 
of the world to the other—yet would 
not these accursed begs, thereby es- 
cape the sufferings of what is mainly 
and essentially hell. You may even 
transport their persons into what is locally 
heaven ; and yet, recoiling as they would 
from. what that is which forms the en- | 
joyment of its indwellers, they would still 
continue to be haunted by the substantial 
wretchedness of hell. ‘These are miser- 
ies from which no change of place, and 
no sentence of justification, can deliver 
them. These are ills from which they 
cannot be saved, by a mere act of trans- 
ference from one abode to another.— 
There must be an act of transformation 


xx] 


from one character to another; or, in 
other words, if faith be to save them from 
these, they must be sanctified by faith. 
~ But, without going for illustration to 
the outcasts of exile and imprisonment, 
the very same thing may be exemplified 
in the bosom of families. It is not neces- 
sary that pain be inflicted on bodies by 
actions of violence, in order to make up 
a wretched family. It is enough that 
pain be made to rankle within every 
heart, by means of the affections of vio- 
lence. Out of the elements of malignity, 
and suspicion, and hatred, and unfaith- 
fulness, and disgust—an abode of enjoy- 
ment may be turned into an abode of in 
tensest suffering. A house upon earth, 
from the mere operation of moral causes, 
may be turned into hell. The fiercest 
ingredients of the place of torment, may 
brood and break out in the dwelling- 
places of the unregenerate in the world. 
So that though the material element of 
fire were altogether expunged from .the 
future arrangements of nature and of 
providence—yet God has other elements, 
which he can wield to the eternal wretch- 
edness of those who disobey him. There 
are other agonies which share the work 
of vengeance in that lake, that is repre- 
sented as burning with fire and brim- 
stone. Our own passions will be to Him 
the ministers of hottest indignation ; and 
to be saved from these, it is not enough 
that we be justified in our persons—there 
must be a meetness impressed on our 
characters, and to be saved we must be 
sanctified. 

It is true, at the same time, of many a 
worldly man—that he may be compara- 
tively a stranger to the fiercer maligni- 
ties of our nature; and that he may not, 
therefore, carry to the place of his desti- 
nation the torture which these are calcu- 
lated to inflict upon him. But it is at 
least true of every man, who is not born 
ot the Spirit of God—that he loves the 
creature more than the Creator. Let 
him carry this unsanctified affection with 
him to his grave. Let the desires of 
flesh and blood remain unsanctified by 
the Holy Ghost, at that period when 
death lays him prostrate like a fallen tree 
upon the ground. Let it be true, that as 
the tree falleth so it lies; and that when 
he rises again, he rises with this idola- 
trous affection in the full vigour of carnal 


THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 


143 


and unsubdued nature. On the great day 
of manifestation, let the utter worthless 
ness of such a propensity, be laid open 
to his now awakened conscience; and 
let the shame and everlasting contempt 
of a preference so sordid, follow him to 
his assigned habitation. Let him be 
made to see that there adheres to his 
character, the guilt of having cast his 
God away from him; and the folly of 
having forsaken the fountain of unperish- 
able good, and chosen for his eternity the 
wretched employment of feeding upon 
ashes. Let the eye of infinite rectitude 
be felt to be turned upon him as an eye 
of rebuke ; and let him know himself to 
be a worthless outcast from the great 
family of holiness. ‘These are sufficient 
of themselves to make out the sting of an 
undying worm, whether a weight of cor- 
poreal agony be added or not to the 
weight of these agonising reflections. 
In these, there is enough of the elements 
of disquietude. to give to heli an unsup- 
portable bitterness ; and to be saved from 
these, it will not suffice that his name be 
expunged from the book of condemna- 
tion. , It will not suffice that a sentence 
of justification be attached to his name. 
A real process of crucifying him unto 
the world, and making him alive unto 
God, must be attached to his person. Or, 
in other words—in virtue of an eternal 
ordination by which misery of feeling is 
ever attached to worthlessness of char- 
acter, there is a misery attached to every 
depraved creature, to be saved from 
which, his depravity must be done away, 
and he must be sanctified. 

This might be rendered still more 
evident, by our directing your attention, 
in the second place, to heaven, and to 
the essential character of that blessedness 
which is found in it. But enough that 
we distinguish between that part of the 
punishment of hell, which is arbitrarily 
attached to sin, and that part of it which 
is necessarily and naturally attached. to 
sin. It may be seen from this how little 
a mere unaccompanied deed of justifica- 
tion can do for us—if it only deliver us 
from the material fire of the place of 
condemnation. It will be seen, that, even 
were the fire extinguished, there would, 
im every unregenerate bosom, be moral 
elements at work, to constitute an undy- 
ing worm, which would never cease te 


‘144 


torment us by its corrosions—that, to be 
delivered from the torture and the fury 
of these elements, the elements them- 
selves must be extinguished; or, in other 
words, we must be delivered from all the 
passions and all the propensities of un- 
godliness. We must be delivered from 
the whole train of dark, and malignant, 
and worldly affections, which the apostle 
denominates the works of the flesh. We 
must be delivered from all that is oppo- 
site either to the first or to the second 


THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 


| [SERM. 


commandment of the law. God, in fact, 
must make that new covenant with us, 
by which He gives us clean hearts, and 
creates within us right spirits. In other 
words, it is not enough that there be 
a forensic deed of justification. There 
must be a personal transformation of 
character ; and faith cannot save us from 
that which forms the mighty burden of - 
a sinner’s curse—but through the sinne 
being sanctified by faith. | 





SERMON XX. 


The connection between Singleness of Aim and Spiritual Discernment. 


‘The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be fult 
of light.”—Matruew vi. 22. / 


‘THERE is a great demand among cer- 
tain religionists, for clear and simple 
views of the gospel. And, to make this 
good, they often fasten upon some one 
truth or object in the field of revelation, 
to which they look singly and exclu- 
sively; and as if it alone were representa- 
tive of all Christianity, or comprehensive 
of all. They seem to have confounded 
singleness of eye, with the singleness of 
the object which the eye fastens upon ; 
and to have understood our Saviour as if 
He meant to describe the state of the 
object, when He was describing the state 
of the organ. Now it is with the mental 
as it is with the corporeal eye. Ina pure 
and right state of the latter, it is not one 
thing only which is seen, but all the 
things which are on the field of vision— 
the trees, and the houses, and the various 
objects, which make up a complex and 
extended landscape. It would mark a 
disease, and not a perfection, in this 
organ—were its power of beholding re- 
stricted to one thing only. And the 
same is true of the spiritual landscape— 
of the Bible that tablet of revelation, on 
which are spread out the doctrines and 
une informations of a voluminous record. 
It would argue no perfection in the 
seeing faculty of the mind, were it awake 
only to one of these doctrines while blind 
or undiscerning to all the rest. Did its 


singleness consist in the oneness of ‘he 
thing which it saw, so that all the other 
things both new and old of scripture were 
unheeded or unobserved by it—this 
surely were an impotency or a defect, 
instead of an excellency in the mental 
eye. Instead of the whole body being 
full of light, there would be a partial and 
distorted view of Christian truth ; and for 
the largeness and variety of heaven’s 
own communication, we should be wholly 
taken up with some shibboleth of a party 
some solitary principle or point of narrow 
Sectarlanism. 

We may be sure then that the single 
ness of eye, in our text, 1s something 
different from any straitening of this sort; 
and by which, in fact, illumination were 
obstructed, rather than let forth in all its 
fulness and expanse upon the understand- 
ing. This singleness of eye refers not 
to the number of truths which might be 
presented to the contemplation of the 
intellect; nor does it signify’ that we 
should but entertain one truth, or one 
topic, in opposition to a multiplicity. It 
refers to the number of pursuits in which, 
for various objects of desire or affection, 
we might be practically engaged ; and it 
signifies that we should give ourselves to 
one such pursuit to the exclusion of every 
other, or at least to the entire subordina- 
tion of every other. It is called single- 


xx] 


ness of eye, not because the eye sees but 
one thing; but, more properly, because 
it looks in one direction—having one 
great object after which the mind pre- 
dominantly aims ; and to which therefore 
it looks steadfastly, and constantly, and 
so singly. Singleness of eye in this 
place, denotes, not the simplicity of our 
intellectual regards as bestowed on some 
one object of theoretical contemplation, 
but the simplicity of our moral regards 
towards some one object of practical 
attamment. It marks the unity, and 
along with it, the energy of a ruling 
passion—for which every other passion 
is pressed into subserviency, or gives 
way altogether. It follows not because 
the mind hath fixed and concentred all its 
faculties on some one acquisition, that 
it must all the while confine its regards 
to but one truth in science or one article 
in theology. The navigator may have 
set his heart on the realizing of a dis- 
covery In some remote quarter of ‘the 
globe ; and with this, as his supreme or 
- rather single ambition, he may repel 
every lateral temptation that would divert 
him on his way; and suffer neither the 
beauty and luxury of one region to detain 
him, nor the gainful merchandise of 
another to draw him from his course. 
There is here singleness of eye—yet of 
an eye filled and exercised with many 
objects of contemplation notwithstanding; 
and busied in the work of perpetual 
observation, both on the depths of the 
earth beneath and on the courses of the 
firmament above, on the compass by 
which he steers, on the chart by which 
he measures and ascertains his progress. 
The voyage may be said to have but one 
object—yet, for its proper guidance and 
equipment, there might be a manifold 
attention required, and light not from one 
but from many sciences. And so of the 
voyage to eternity, and the steadfast or 
singlehearted prosecution of it. The 
object is one; and he who is resolved 
upon its attainment, may evince both the 
strenoth and the simplicity of his purpose, 
by his universal resistance to the various 
solicitations, that would draw him by a 
thousand devious ways from the path 
to heaven. Yet we are not to suppose, 
that, because the object is one, it is but 
the light of one truth or one proposition 
which leads the way to it. To the 
19 


CONNECTION OF SINGLENESS OF AIM AND SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT. 








145 


expediting of this journey, there is use 
for the whole fulness and furniture of the 
Bible. And as its objects, are various, so 
the mind is variously exercised—at one 
time with the doctrine of the sacrifice, 
whence it obtaineth peace—at another 
with the doctrine of the Spirit, whence it 
obtaineth strength—at a third with the 
doctrine of the law as a rule of life 
to believers, whence it obtaineth direc- 
tion. In short, instead of but one truth 
singled out perhaps by some hair-splitting 
or metaphysic nicety, the manifold lights 
of scripture and experience conspire to 
shine upon his way. His eye is single, 
not because it looks to but one point 
in theology—but because intent upon the 
one object of a blissful immortality, or 
upon the one path which leads to it. 

Now though, beside the single pursuit 
of religion, there may be specified a 
thousand other pursuits distinct from it 
and opposed to it—as the pursuit of fame, 
the pursuit of fortune, the pursuit of am- 
bition, the pursuit of pleasure—yet, in the 
Bible, all these are generally classed 
together and comprehended, under the 
one characteristic of enmity to God and 
a life of godliness, of rivalship with the 
interests of eternity. 

It is thus that the children of light and 
the children of this world are contrasted 
with each other—the meat that perisheth, 
with the meat that endureth—the temp- 
tations of the present evil world, with the 
powers of the world to come—the broad 
way of destruction, with the narrow path 
of life everlasting—the slavery of Satan, 
with the service of the living and true 
God Man is looked upon as being un- 
der the rivalry of two great forces, of but 
two great confticting elements. Our text, 
where singleness of eye is recommended 
lies between one passage in which we 
are told to lay not up for ourselves 
treasures on earth but treasures in 
heaven, and another passage in which 
we are told that no man serve two 
masters and that he cannot serve God 
and mammon. ‘This singleness stands 
opposed in scripture, not ta multiplicity, 
but to doubleness. It is true that there 
are manifold earthly affections, any one 
of which might prevail to the destruction 
of our hopes and interests in eternity ; 
yet they may all be regarded, im theit 
one generic character of earthliness. 





146 


“ Love not the world,” says the apostle 
John, “ neither the things that are in the 
world. If any man love the world, the 
love of the Father is not in him. For 
all that is in the world, the lust of the 
flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the 
pride of life, is not of the Father but is 
of the world. And the world passeth 
away and the lust thereof; but he that 
doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” 
It is by wavering between these two, be- 
tween the will of God on the one hand, 
and some worldly affection whatever that 
may be upon the other—that we neglect 
the injunction of the text, like the double- 
minded man who is unstable in all his 
ways. It is because the eye most looks 
to what the heart most likes, that single- 
ness of eye is made to denote the single- 
ness of a heart, set upon heaven and its 
treasures. It is because the regards of 
the mind are solely fixed upon that 
which is solely aimed after, that, by the 
same term, we may express that full pur- 
pose of heart, wherewith we cleave to 
the one master, and utterly refuse the 
bribes or service of the other. It is be- 
cause when bent on some great pursuit, 
we turn aside neither to the right nor 
to the left, but persevere in our onward 
course, unseduced by any object that 
would lure us into by-ways—that by the 
singleness of eye in our text, we under- 
stand the habit of him, who, actuated by 
the one perpetual will to be what he 
ought and do what he ought, resists the 
very solicitation that might tempt him 
away from this great and unchanging 
principle. Singleness of eye is held 
equivalent to singleness of heart or of 
purpose—because when the regards of 
the heart are solely directed to the one 
thing needful, then the regards of the un- 
derstanding are solely directed to its con- 
templation, and to the means of securing 
it. And what we have now to evince is 
how, such being the moral state of the 
purposes and affections, the intellectual 
state of the whole body being full of light 
follows from it—just as an effect does from 
its cause, or a consequent from the ante- 
cedent that went before it. We should 
like, if possible, to manifest the connec- 
tion between the one and the other ; and 
to show by what transition it is, that the 
man whose whole determination and de- 
sire is to make good hig eternity in 


CONNECTION OF SINGLENESS OF AIM AND SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT. 


[SERM, 


heaven, and who, in pursuit of this, 1s 
ready to shun or to sacrifice every object 
of desire that would enter into coipeti- 
tion with it—how he comes, and in vir- 
tue of this very attitude, to move forward 
in an element of clearness, and to be free 
from the doubts and uncertainties which 
harass the spirits and hinder the pro- 
gress of other men. 


I. Nowthe first reason for this is very 
obvious, and in harmony with all expe- 
rience. That.which we most desire to 
have, we most desire to know about ; or 
at least, to know the means of obtaining 
it. It isnot im nature, that we should 
vehemently wish to possess an object, 
and yet be at no pains to inquire the 
way to it. Let a man be actuated by a 
strong and unceasing desire after salva- 
tion ; and he will never cease to search 
after the way of salvation, even till he 
has found it. He will hearken diligent- 
ly, and, as the fruit of this, his soul will 
at length be satisfied. The desire of his 
heart will set to work the faculties of his 
mind; and, just as in all other busy 
scholarship, the learning is in proportion 
to the labour—so will he find it the way 
to light and learning in the scholarship 
of Christianity. The more sharply set 
we are upon any attainment, the more 
surely will we give all our wits to the in- 
vestigation of the process by which it 
may be reached; and just as the skill 
and intelligence are al] the greater ina 
favourite service, than in one to which 
we are indifferent—so the more favourite 
any object of ambition is, the more exer- 
cised and awake will our attention be to 
all the methods by which it may be real- 
ized. Just conceive this object to be the 
friendship of God. Let it be the un- 
quenchable desire of the creature, going 
forth in quest of the Creator. Let it be 
such a thirst after the living God, as to 
make it the supreme and most urgent ap- 
petite of his nature—Then, under its im- 
pulse, he, in the strong language of scrip- 
ture, will stir himself up that he may lay 
hold of his Maker; he will search after 
Him as for hidden treasure; he will seek 
for Him if haply he may find Him. He 
will eagerly pursue after every trace and. 
indication of the Godhead. He will seek 
for Him in the Bible. He will seek. for 
Him in meditation. He will seek for 


xx] 


Him in prayer. He will grope as it 
were in every direction for the way 
of access; nor will he take rest to 
nis soul, while the deeply interesting 
question is unsettled, wherewithal shall 
a sinner appear before God? It is 
evident that the more intense this desire, 
the more intense and diligent also will 
his search be after the object of it. 
And should the one become the engross- 
ing desire of his heart, the other will be- 
come the paramount business of his life. 
It will be his supreme and unremitting 
earnestness, to seek after God. Should 
he at length find Him and find Him fully, 
there is nothing at least to surprise us in 
the result. It is in keeping with a law, 
which, in every department of attainable 
knowledge, holds universally. Generally 
_ Speaking, in proportion to the laborious- 
ness of the search, is the largeness of the 
discovery. ‘There is nothing mysterious 
in this. It seems to follow in the way 
of natural consequence ; nor should we 
wonder, when the heart or the eye is 
thus so strongly, nay so singly set ona 
blissful eternity, as that the whole con- 
cern is to explore the avenue which leads 
to it—that the fruit of such singleness of 
eye is the whole body becoming full of 
light. 

Before we pass on to the next reason 
of this connection between the one thing 
and the other, let us appeal to the con- 
sciences of those who are now present 
on the subject of the reason which we 
have just given. If they hold it to be an 
invalid reason, can they say so on their 
own experience? Have they given all 
diligence to this great inquiry, and find 
that they remain in darkness notwith- 
standing? Have they striven with all 
their might after a knowledge of the 
things which belong to their peace, and 
yet abide as far from peace and from 
satisfying light as before? Can they 
appeal to the fatiguing yet fruitless toils 
of a most laborious and long-sustained 
inquiry, that has yet terminated in no- 
thing? What have been their readings, 
what their importunate and persevering 
supplications at the door of heaven’s 
sanctuary? How long have they kept 
by the attitude, or how frequently have 
they been found in it—of the Bible in 
their hands, and a prayer in their hearts 
that in the light of God’s own revelation 


CONNECTION OF SINGLENESS OF AIM AND SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT. 


147 


they may clearly see light? He holds 
Himself out as the rewarder of those 
who seek Him diligently—what we ask 
has been their diligence in seeking God 2 
Do they expect to find Him without dili- 
gence; and while they are indulging in 
spiritual sloth, or are diligent about other 
even temporal things, the light of His 
countenance and His ways is at once to 
break forth upon them? They have 
never found; but in good truth it is be- 
cause they have never sought. At least 
their seeking has never amounted to 
striving. It has been nothing like the 
strenuous and sustained effort of one 
singly bent on the good of his eternity; 
and giving himself, with perfect single- 
ness of heart and of eye, to this great 
consummation. Day after day, the ques- 
tion has been postponed ; and they have 
put off to a more convenient season the 
labour of its full and serious entertain- 
ment ; and, in reference to the peculiar 
business of their eternity, to the good and 
the interest of their unperishable souls, 
their habit all their lives long has heen 
that of a dull and languid procrastination 
—with now and then perhaps some fruit- 
less sighs, some heaving yet transient 
and wholly unproductive aspirations. 
But never all the while a real taking up 
of the question—a real and substantial 
and industrious prosecution of it. ‘They 
do not make a business of this inquiry at 
all. They do not go about it, with the 
plain and practical object of bringing it 
to a settlement. On the subject of their 
eternity, they acquiesce in the most vague 
and unsubstantial generalities; and are 
at no pains that it should be otherwise. 
Yet they complain of darkness. We tell 
them that they have not bestirred them- 
selves to the search. They distrust the 
efficacy of a search. We tell them that 
they are no judges, they have never 
tried. 


II. Our next reason, however~ difficult 
to propound, we hold to be one of. 
main efficacy in this process. He who 
hath singled out and set his heart or his 
eye upon eternity, proves himself to be 
rightly impressed by the worth of eter- 
nity. He begins by a just estimate of 
the relation between eternity and time. 

The effect of this is incalculable. It 
rectifies, just because it reverses all the 


148 


tmaginations of nature. There is on 
this subject a grand practical delusion, 
the bane and bewilderment of our spe- 
cies. ‘T'o our optics, time stands forth in 
the characters of eternity ; and eternity 
has the insignificance of time. All our 
ideas of magnitude are inverted. ‘The 
substance appears the shadow, and the 
shadow the substance. The correction 
of this would wholly change our mental 
panorama, and throw a new light over 
x. Let eternity and time be but seen in 
their just proportions ; and by this alone 
the scenery of the future, if we may so 
express it, would be completely trans- 
formed. What is now the foreground, 
and occupies the whole field of vision, 
would shrink into nothing ; and the new 
dim and shadowy ulterior would brighten 
into vivid interest, and expand into mag- 
nificence before us. The single rectifica- 
tion would introduce justness and order 
into the whole perspective of our being 
—just as the assumption of a great and 
true principle in science, might bring or- 
der out of confusion, and light up as it 
were a whole chaos of phenomena. It 
is only by this reference to eternity, that 
we can make a right survey of human 
existence—just as a map in geography is 
rightly constructed, by the references of 
a correct and comprehensive scale. And 
what a different representation do we at- 
tain of life, when we thus proceed 
on the high scale of eternity, to measure 
off all and to subordinate all—giving 
f each event or interest its right place, 
and its right proportion in reference to 
the whole. It would give us a similar 
command over a prospect in time, that 
the loftiest summit in the landscape gives 
over a prospect in space. Among the 
focalities of the every-day world, or 
among the urgencies of every day life, we 
are alike lost in the nearness, and multi- 
tude of besetting objects; and are 
strangely insensible to the comparative 
litleness of »resent things, whether in 
Space or in curation. It is by an en- 
largement of the view that this error is 
corrected—in the one case by an extended 
vision, in the other by an exalted faith. 
It is this which reduces to their proper 
size and importance, all temporal things. 
The universal ‘error would be met by a 
universal correction. Could we now see 
to be little‘all that we falsely imagined to 


CONNECTION CF SINGLENESS OF AIM AND SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT, 


[SERM, 


be great, and see to be great all that we 
falsely disregarded as little—this of itself 
would dissipate a world of illusions, and 
on this single change in the habit and 
perception of the mental eye, the whole 
body would become full of light. . 
And let us here make another appeal 
to the consciences of men. What are 
objects of greatest significancy and mo- 
ment in their eyes? Let their eyes de- 
clare it. Let the whcle drift of their 
thoughts and affections daclare it. Does 
not the business of every day proceed 
on a constant exaggeration of things pre- 
sent, and as constant an extenuation of 
things future and eternal? ‘It is thus 
that there runs a great practical illusion, 
through the whole system of their affairs, 
It may well be called a perpetual error, 
that has the dominion over them; and 
by acting perpetually upon it, their dark- 
ness thickens the more as they grow 
older—just like’ any other infatuation, 
which becomes the more powerful the 
longer it is persisted in. In the very 
wisdom of the secular man, there is 
throughout a radical fallacy—proceeding 
as it does on the fancied worth of that 
which is insignificant, on the magnitude 
of that which is paltry, on the endurance 
or that which is evanescent and perish- 
able. The light which is in him is 
darkness, and how great therefore is that 
darkness! It envelops every thing. It 
distorts every thing. He sees, but it is 
through a false medium—so false, that 
even infinity is reversed into its opposite 
—the infinitely great Being regarded as 
nothing ; the infinitely small absorbing 
every desire of the heart, and monopo- 
lising the whole field of vision. It is ob- 
vious that by the simple dispersion of 
this medium, the whole aspect and char- 
acter of things would be changed. It 
would give rise to another and an oppo- 
site manifestation. It were more than 
the overthrow of an error. It were the 
subversion of a system of error—the re- 
moval of a false light, which tinged every 
thing and discoloured every thing. As 
by the hold of one right principle, we 
are enabled to rectify a thousand wrong 
conclusions—so, with but a right sense 
of eternity, those multiplied errors would 
vanish away, by which the whole of hu 
man existence is hourly and habitually in- 
fested. The grand deception of | life 


xx] 
would be clearcd away; and on this one 
simple change in the objects of the mind, 
the whole body would become full of 
light. 

It is in things of sacredness as in 
inings of science. ‘There is often a vir- 
tue in one principle to cast a pervading 
illumination and glory over the whole 
field of contemplation. The subordina- 
tion of the thing that is formed, to Him 
who formed it is such a principle—it be- 
ing one of universal application, and that 
leaves nothing untouched, as comprehen- 
sive of all that exists, of the Creator who 
made all of the creature who received 
his all. It is therefore well said, that the 
fear of God is the beginning, or the first 
principle of wisdom. The overpassing 
greatness of Eternity to Time, is ano- 
ther such principle—it being one that af- 
fixes its character of magnitude or mi- 
nuteness to every object, of wisdom or 
folly to every pursuit. ‘The two, we be- 
lieve, are never apart—each being impli- 
cated with the other, so that the inlet of 
either to the mind, were the admission of 
a light that should overspread the whole 
of its perspective. And the man who 
looked singly to the interest of his Eter- 
nity; laying up all his treasure there ; or 
who looked singly to the will of his 
God, cleaving to him as the alone Master 
of his services—will experience the ful- 
filment of our text, the guidance of a ce- 
lestial wisdom in all his doings, a glory 
from above shining on all his paths. 

But there may be a singleness of eye 
either in the direction of Earth, or in the 
direction of Heaven ; and we hold it the 
special aim of our text, to warn against 
the vacillations of those, who look at 
both and strive to effect a compromise 
between them. They would fain unite 
the interests of both worlds ; and it will 
general be found of such, that they look 

abitually to the one, and but occasion- 
ally to the other. Whenever the pursuit 


CONNECTION OF SINGLENESS OF AIM AND SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT. 


149 
of an everlasting good is superseded by 
the pursuit of a merely temporal good, it 
has something more than a distracting, 
it has a darkening effect also. The mind 
is not only divided between an object of 
sense and an object of faith ; but a deeper 
shade of concealment is thrown over the 
remote and unseen object. Immortality, 
viewed as a dogma, may be as zealously 
asserted as ever ; but immortality, viewed 
as a living and substantial reality, is sadly 
bedimmed by every act of practical de- 
votion to the power of things present and 
things sensible. It may retain its place 
as an article of the creed, yet without be- 
ing credited—for, be the profession what 
it may, to the man whose affections gro- 
vel among the things of earth, heaven is 
but a nonentity and a name. The very 
desire of any worldly thing, is an homage 
done to the worth and magnitude of that 
which is temporal; and is fitted to dis- 
turb the estimate we should otherwise 
have formed, of the overpassing magni- 
tude of that which is eternal. It lays us 
open to that most bewildering of all 
sophistry—the sophistry of the affections. 
When the choice and the judgment draw 
opposite ways, the judgment is at length 
perverted in the conflict and counteraction 
of the two adverse influences. The light 
of the understanding is, as it were, smo- 
thered under that perversity of the will 
by which it is constantly thwarted and 
overborne. The superior worth of eter- 
nity may, on occasions, be feebly recog- 
nized ; but the superior worth of time is 
always the principle that is fully acted 
on. In this war of contradiction, where 
the conduct perpetually belies the creed, 
and the creed as perpetually reclaims, 
but without effect against the conduct, 
there is an augmenting and aggravating 
darkness—till both the power and light 
of conscience are extinguished, and life 
settles down into a system of obstinate, 
often irrecoverable delusion 


150 


SERMON XXI. 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 


The Second Coming of Christ. 


“ Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven? This same Jesus, 
_ which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go 


into Heaven.”—ActTs i. 11. 


THERE are certain great steps, or suc- 
cessive periods, in the divine administra- 
tion—each of which forms an era in the 
history of our world. The first scrip- 
tural era is from the Creation to the Flood. 
The second from the Flood to the call of 
Abraham. The third from the call of 
Abraham to the promulgation of the law 
in mount Sinai. The fourth is from the 
promulgation of the law to the end of 
the Jewish economy. And the last, within 
whose limits ours forms one of the many 
generations, is distinctly marked both by 
its epoch and by its close—the former by 
Christ’s ascension from our world—the 
latter by His appearance in the sky, 
when the same Jesus who was taken up 
into Heaven shall so come in like man- 
ner as He was seen go into Heaven. 

It is good to connect our brief, our little 
day, with the roll and succession of these 
great changes in the spiritual jurispru- 
dence:of our species. It is elevating to 
look at the place which belongs to our- 
selves, in this magnificent progression ; 
and it tends to sublime, to solemnize hu- 
man life, as it were, above the vulgarity 
of its daily and familiar concerns—when 
thus enabled to assign the point which 
We occupy in the march or evolution of 
that great drama, which commences with 
the birth, and terminates with the disso- 
lution of our world. But it does more 
than exalt the imagination. It serves 
both to inform, and powerfully to impress 
the conscience. It teaches what the atti- 
tude and the preparation are, which cor- 
respond to the high position that we fill, 
and to the high expectations that await 
us. Altogether its effect, or rather, per- 
haps, its tendency, is to abstract and to 
lift the soul above the dust of that earth- 
liness in which it so habitually grovels ; 
and, when thus mingling the calls of 
duty with the contemplation of the earlier 
and the later stages in the history of our 


race, we as place ourselves at the side of 
the saints and the righteous men of other 
days, and rise to a sort of kindred eleva- 
tion with the ancients of inspired writ— 
with the holy patriarchs who have gone 
before us. 

At none of the periods which we have 
now specified, did (sod leave Himself 
without a witness, or ever abandon the 
care and government of our species. Of- 
ten as the world may have lost sight of 
Him, He kept by the world, and made it 
the busy scene both of His purposes and 
fulfilments. Even when the world in its 
blindness thought least of God, God was 
not sitting in the state and distance of 
lofty unconcern to the world; but, intent 
on great designs, was He directing all 
the springs, and presiding over all the 
movements of its history. And so at 
each term of this mighty series of chan- 
ges, we behold a demonstration of the 
Godhead. It was so, when, moved by 
the wickedness that was upon the earth, 
He by the waters of the flood, swept off 
all its living generations, and left but one 
memorial of our race in the preservation 
of one family. It was so again, when 
mankind were again lapsing into their 
old forgetfulness of Himself; and He, to 
keep up His name and His remembrance 
m the midst of them, singled out another 
family, and threw a wall of separation 
around them. It was most visibly so, 
when He made his descent upon Sinai; 
and the voice of the Eternal was heard 
by the thousands of Israel; and the 
flame, and the smoke, and the thunder, 
gave manifest tokens of a present Deity; 
and the law which issued from His lips, 
bespoke Him to be still the Governor of 
men, and still the asserting Lord of His 
own Creation. But most of all, among 
these evolutions of the Supreme which 
are already past, have we to regard that 
age of miracle when the Saviour lived, 


xt] 


and that event of deepest mystery when 
He died—when, the old economy wax- 
ing away like a temporary apparatus for 
some greater and more enduring con- 
summation, and a new economy emerg- 
ing out of the ruins and the tremendous 
overthrow of the one that had gone before 
it, gave distinct evidence of a new and a 
more advanced era in the government of 
our world. And this brings us down- 
ward to ourselves, upon whom the latter 
ends of the world have come. The era 
in which we live has had its striking 
outset, and it will have its awful termina- 
tion. ‘The ascent of our Saviour begun 
the era—the descent of our Saviour will 
finish it. There is a peculiar character 
which such a beginning and such an 
ending of our dispensation give to the 
dispensation itself; and the question is, 
what are our responding duties and re- 
sponding expectations ? 

But we must first advert to the purpose, 
for which Christ came intothe world. : You 
are aware of God as its Moral Governor. 
You are aware both of a law written on 
the tablet of an express revelation, and of 
a law written upon our hearts. You 
know that Law and Government and 
Authority are words without meaning, if 
not accompanied by securities and sanc- 
tions ; and, more particularly, if disobe- 
ence is not to be challenged and not to be 
reckoned with. With these undoubted 
principles, and the equally undoubted 
fact that all had fallen short of the com- 
mandments of God—in what other light 
can we regard mankind, than as a re- 
volted family ? and responsible for their 
defection, at the bar of that rightful sov- 
ereign whose authority they had set at 
nought ? The question at issue, was one 
which affected the dignity of the Lawgiv- 
er; and there were an end of all juris- 
diction, if God might enact and yet not 
enforce, or if man might disobey and yet 
not incur the condemnation and the pen- 
alty. Behold then the state to which we 
had reduced ourselves—a state of contro- 
versy with our Maker ; and on the set- 
tlement of which, His attributes and the 
unchangeable principles of His govern- 
‘ment were at stake. It was indeed a 
fearful thing for our species, when there 
appeared no other way of deliverance 
from ruin, but that which would bring 
dishonour on the throne of Heaven, and 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 


/ 


151 


lay a reflection on the truth and majesty 
of Him who sitteth thereon. And hence 
the peculiar errand on which our Say 
iour came. It was to open wide the por- 
tals of mercy for a guilty world—yet to 
open them so, as to cast not an obscurity 
but a heightened Justre on all the other 
perfections of the Godhead. It was to 
resolve that mystery which angels de- 
sired to look into—to reconcile the honour 
of the law with the forgiveness of those 
who had broken it—and at once to heap 
blessings upon -the head of the sinner, 
and to magnify all the prerogatives of the 
commandment that he had violated.— 
This was the knot of difficulty which had 
to be united. ‘This was the wall of par- 
tition which had to be broken down. Or 
this the impassable gulph, over which 
there had to be thrown a high-way of 
communication between the rebels of our 
exiled world, and their offended Sover- 
elgn. 

And we know, or at least we know in 
part, what our Saviour did and suffered 
to achieve this enterprise—of the descent 
that He made from Heaven; of the 
sojourn that He had on earth ; of the in- 
carnation by which He veiled the glories 
of His divinity, under the likeness of a 
man ; of the preternatural conflicts, and 
temptations, and agonies, that He had to 
undergo; of His mysterious warfare 
with the powers of darkness; and the 
season of deep endurance that He had to 
travel through ere that victory was won, 
and His own arm had brought to Him 
salvation. A contest this, where were 
many spectators. The eminences of 
Heaven were crowned ; and the dark- 
ness, and the earthquake, and the open- 
ing of graves, and the coming forth of 
their dead, all gave token to the big and 
busy importance of what was going on. 
It was amid these symptoms of distress in 
nature, that our Saviour expired; and 
the soul which He poured out an offering 
for sin, after the unknown history of 
a few days, re-entered the body from 
which it had departed; and, coming 
again into familiar converse with men, 
did He now manifest the new and the 
living way of access, that Himself had 
opened, and by which the farthest off in 
guilt and depravity amongst us might 
draw nigh unto God. And thus, having 
both finished the work of our reconcilia- 


152 


tion and proclaimed it, did He leave the 
world to the hopes and the appropriate 
duties of that new economy which Him- 
self had instituted—ofthat new era which 
Himself had ushered in. 

But, to complete our grounds for a 
practical application—let us further think 
of the relationship in which He now 
stands to the world; and of the regard 
which He now casts towards it; and of 
the interest wherewith He is now look- 
ing down, to see whether there be any 
consequent movement on our part, by 
which we might accord to the movement 
made upon His. When He returned 
to the place which He now occupies, He 
would be hailed by the hosts of Paradise 
as the Finisher of a great enterprise. It 
behoved to be a re-entrance of triumph, 
after the toils and the suffermgs of an 
arduous undertaking; and loud and 
high must have been the gratulations 
of welcome to Him, who, travelling in 
the greatness of His strength over all ob- 
stacles, established a reunion, and reared 
a pathway of communication between 
Earth and Heaven. And let us only 
conceive, by what other and by what 
opposite feelings, must those of rapture 
and benevolent triumph have been suc- 
ceeded—if, on looking to this pathway so 
laboriously reared, it had been found 
without a traveller—if, unmoved by all 
the signals of invitation and by all the fa- 
cilities of a now provided access, the 
regardless world had remained as slug- 
gish and alienated as before—if it had 
been found that the door of acceptance 
was opened in vain, and a highway of 
approach over the else dreary and un- 
trodden interval was constructed in vain 
—and if, after the victory had been gotten, 
and the toil and the contest and the 
hazard of the great mediatorship been 
ended, unthankful man, in whose behalf 
it was all undertaken, should set it utterly 
at nought; and, cleaving to that world 
from which neither the threats of a com- 
ing judgment nor the offers of a present 
salvation could disengage him, he should, 
heedless alike of the punishment and of 
the pardon, stamp a nullity on ali the 
wonders of redeeming love, and trample 
the Redeemer’s work into utter and most 
affronting insignificance. 


There are three distinct. proprieties 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 


[SERM. 


which belong to the condition of those 
who live in our present era—-the era that 
has begun with the ascent, and that is to 
terminate with the descent of the Saviour. 
The first is a high sense of the worth 
of that salvation which Christ hath 
achieved, and which He now offers to 
the children of men. ‘The second is that 
change of desire and affection, which is 
induced by our acceptance of it. - And 
the third is that abundant righteousness 
of life by which the profession of Chris- 
tianity is adorned, and its Author and 
Finisher is well pleased. 


I. What an outrage is cast on the Sa- 
viour’s enterprise, when, instead of being 
prized and sought after as a thing of 
worth, it is slighted, and by those too, for 
whom it was designed and executed, asa 
thing of worthlessness. The likest case 
to if which we can imagine, is that of a 
physician, who announces himself as the 
inventor of a sovereign remedy ; and cir- 
culates at large his gratuitous offers; and 
rears the magnificent office, to which in 
crowds his suffering patients might re- 
pair; and inscribes upon its front both 
the freeness and the efficacy of his great 
specific, and in such flaming characters 
as might be seen and read of all men. 
Weask you to think of the felt mortifica- 
tion, if, after this parade and expectancy, 
not one individual should be found, who 
responds to the big and the blazoned 
overtures—if, after weeks and months of 
idle tarrying, no single applicant should 
come to the door; and all the pomp, and 
all the promise of this enterprise, should 
be utterly put to shame by the neglect of 
a contemptuous and unbelieving public. 
Is it not grievous to think, that such is 
the very scorn, and such the very outrage 
now inflicted by the world upon the Sa- 
viour!—that He, the minister of the true 
sanctuary, and whose office it is to wait 
at the tabernacle of Heaven for the ap- 
proaches of all who are weary and heavy- 
laden, is just so put to shame !—that 
in lightly esteeming Christ, we virtually 
treat Him and all His biddings and pro- 
clamations of welcome with the cruellest 
derision, even the derision of our indiffer- 
ence and distrust 2—that thus we mock 
the enterprise on which He came, and 
cause His attendant angels to blush at 
the sight cast by the world upon Him, 


XXI.] 


who 1s ¢o oft announced in the hearing 
of men, as the exalted Prince and the 
mighty Saviour? O, let us cease to 
marvel, when told, that the thunders of a 
violated law are but as soft and feeble 
whispers, when compared with the ven- 
geance of a rejected gospel; and that in 
the day when Jesus shall so come from 
heaven, in like manner as He was seen 
go into Heaven, that on that day, the 
foulest profligacy of heathen lands, shall 
be more mildly dealt with, than the 
decent ungodliness of those who have 
heard of mercy and have despised it. 

So, we need be at no loss to compre- 
hend the principles which are now at 
work in Heaven, and which will at 
length break forth upon the world in that 
awful manifestation—the wrath of the 
Lamb. It really need not be marvelled 
at, that they, who do now slumber in the 
depths of spiritual lethargy and uncon- 
cern, Shall then be overtaken with saddest 
fearfulness. ‘The provocation is quite 
intelligible, which will then cause the 
insulted dignity of Heaven to look out 
in characters of menace on a despairing 
world. We might learn from the work- 
ings of our mora! nature, how it is, that, 
simply by living as many of you do in 
neglect of the Saviour, and thus despis- 
ing the riches of his forbearance and 
long-suffering, you treasure up unto 
yourselves wrath against the day of 
wrath and revelation of the righteous 
judgment of God. You have only to 
look to the distinctive character of our 
era. ‘The Saviour hath gone up into 
Heaven, and hath there taken His place 
as a High Priest for sinners at the right 
hand of God. He is there waiting on. 
He is marking as it were the fruit and 
the efficacy of his own far-sounded 
achievement. He is observing how the 
world now replies to it, and is in earnest 
watch for the fruit of the travail of His 
own soul. Like the king who hath de- 
parted into a far country, and who is af- 
terwards to return, he hath gone to some 
place of absence and mystery away from 
our world—whence He will come again, 
and take account of the affairs of His 
government. And meanwhile He eyes 
from afar, how it is that His overtures 
have sped, and how it fares with the gos- 
pel which He left behind Him. And 
the unavoidable result of such a state is, 

20 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 


153 


that if you have received all this grace 
in vain—if, listless and lawless as ever, 
the offers of the gospel have failed to at- 
tract, even as the terrors of the broken 
commandment had failed to arouse you 


'—if, sunk in profoundest apathy, you 


think not, and care not, of the dread al- 
ternative, that he who hath the Son hath 
life, and he who hath not the Son hath 
not life,—if the preaching of His Cross 
be foolishness in your ears, or at least so 
unproductive of influence, as to have 
brought no hope of Heaven into your 
hearts, and to have imprinted none of 
the character of Heaven upon your walk 
and conversation—if, in the busy prose- 
cution of your own entire and unbroken 
earthliness, you still live at a distance 
from God; and, while He, by His Son, 
is stretching forth His hand you are dis- 
regarding—Be assured, as you would ot 
any moral necessity, that He who went 
up to Heaven the gracious and inviting 
Saviour, will come down fiom Heaven 
the indignant judge; and, that if the in- 
termediate season in which you now live 
and have your opportunity be not im- 
proved by you into the season of your 
redemption—it will be declared by Him 
on that day to have been the season in 
which yor: have sealed, with your own 
hands, the sentence of a final and ever- 
lasting reprobation. 

One very palpable mark of your indif- 
ference to what Christ hath done, is that 
the report of it falls so heavily and sv 
bluntly upon® your hearing. Though 
proclaimed Sabbath after Sabbath—this 
brings no such relief, as that which cap- 
tives feel when told of their coming li- 
berty. ‘The only exercise to which you 
seem at all moved by the utterance of a 
gospel truth, is that you recognise its or- 
thodoxy, and so approve of it; and that 
without any visitation upon the soul, of 
the gladness and the hope and the tri- 
umph, which irradiated the walk of the 
primitive Christians. This is insulting 
to the Saviour, because it proves his sal- 
vation to be unbelieved and undervalued. 
It is a mortifying return for His services. 
He now looketh down from the eminence 
to which He had ascended ; and it was 
at least a natural expectation, that the re- 
opening of Heaven’s gate upon the world, 
and the lifting away of those obstructions 
which had blocked the entrance there- 


154 


unto, would have set all in motion—that 
men would have testified their homage 
to this great enterprise, by the readiness 
and the rapture wherewith they accorded 
to it; and that thus it would have been 
responded to by earth’s sinful families. 
Our pleasure in the offered redemption, 
would have been to the Redeemer the 
most pleasing of all acknowledgments. 
And what must be His opposite feeling, 
when, instead of this, the tidings, which 
ought to have lighted up an ecstacy in 
every bosom, are heard by this world’s 
vast majority with perfect unconcern ; 
and when, in reference to the mass and 
multitude of our species, the labour of 
His wondrous achievement has been 
wholly thrown away. ‘That the gift of 
eternal life through Christ Jesus is 
treated by many as a useless thing, may 
be seen from the listlessness of many a 
Christian auditory, when the transaction 
is expounded ; and from those intervals 
of many a day and many a week in the 
private history of individuals, through- 
out which, amid the urgency of life’s or- 
dinary cares, it is never thought of. It 
is the unimportance which they hereby 
put upon the Saviour—it is the cold and 
sullen apathy wherewith his overtures 
are received by them—it is the pre-en- 
gagement of their hearts with the frivol- 
ities of life, and the utter powerlessness 
even of the largest offers and the largest 
hopes of an inheritance above to do it 
away—it is that thankless lethargy, out of 
which the message of pardon and of the 
price whereat it was obtained, is unable 
to move them—it is their insensibility, 
both to the great privilege which is held 
forth to sinners, and to the great expense 
of suffering and degradation and labour 
at which it was earned for them by the 
Saviour—These form the constituents of 
a provocation, which is now accumulat- 
ing every day in the breast of the of- 
fended High Priest, and which, on that 
day when He shall come down from 
Heaven, even as He was seen go into 
Heaven, will fall with one overwhelming 
discharge upon them. 

You may be enabled to conceive from 
this, why God has so much complacency, 
in the trust and in the rejoicing confi- 
dence, which a believer feels in the pro- 
mises of the gospel. It is setting on the 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 








work of His own Son its proper estima- | 


[SERM, 


tion. Our joy 1s a right acknowledg- 
ment, just as our indifference is a grievous 
and a highly displeasing affront. And 
thus it is, that when His disciples per- 
sisted in sluggishness and sorrow, Christ 
was grieved for it; and that God resents, 
as He would the imputation of a lie, when 
they to whom salvation is preached, will 
not lay their confiding hold upon it; and 
that the peace, and the joy, and the glo- 
rying of Faith, are all so acceptable in 
His sight ; and that the dread and the 
distrust and the despondency, all of them 
sensations opposite to these, are felt by 
Him to be so injurious, that, among those 
who shall have part in the second death, 
are ranked the fearful and the unbeliev- 
ing. ‘Thus are we bidden to rejoice in 
the Lord; and when, in the face of all 
that our Saviour hath done, we remain 
in the bondage either of earthly griefs or 
of earthly affections, He is entitled to feel 
the indignation of slighted and under- 
rated services. 


II. But secondly, this acceptance of 
Christ involves in it something more 
than the admission of a new hope. It 
involves the acquisition of a new charac- 
ter; and this cannot be accomplished 
without what is painful to nature—the 
surrender of old desires and affections 
to the mastery of new desires and affec: 
tions, which are substituted in their room. 
There is not merely the translation into 
a new hope. There is the translation 
into a new practical habit. The hope in 
fact will induce the habit. The man 
who looks with a delighted eye on the 
open gate of Heaven, and the now unob- 
structed path which leads to it—that man 
must, at the same time, be aspiring after 
Heaven’s graces ; and must have entered 
on those moralities both of heart and life, 
which give to Heaven all its gladness, 
A man could no more rejoice in the pros- 
pect of the real Heaven of Eternity, 
without a taste and a desire towards its 
spiritual excellence—than he could re- 
joice in the prospect of- entering for life 
upon a foreign land, whose government 
and customs and people were every way 
hateful to him. . It is thus that the faith 
of the gospel induces, or brings in sure 
and speedy train after it, the character of 
the gospel. ‘The very entrance upon its 
hope implies a turning of the soul. By 


xx] 


it, there is not only a looking of the inner 
-man after another portion—but there is a 
caoice of that portion. The man who 
believes, takes up with Heaven as his 
eternal habitation ; and this he cannot do 
without a transference of the heart to 
other things, than those whereby it wont 
to be occupied. Now, it is the aver- 
sion of men to this transference, which 
forms the great obstacle to their accept- 
ance of the gospel. They do not believe, 
because they love the darkness rather 
than the light. Their heart is engaged 


things future. ‘They have no other wish 
than to be as they are. 
of their souls is towards earth ; and they 
‘want not this to be thwarted or disturbed 
by any cause, that would impress an as- 
piring tendency in the opposite direction. 


This is the real secret of their indisposi- | 
Their | 


tion to the overtures of the gospel. 
mind is darkened, just because their.fond 
and foolish heart is darkened. They 
labour under a blindness, no doubt—but 
it is because they labour under a moral 
unwillingness. They do not see the evi- 
dence which would give them faith ; but 
it is because they shut their eyes, or, 
which is the same thing, they will not 
attend to the evidence. ‘This world con- 
tents them; and they are utterly indis- 
posed for any overtures at all about ano- 
ther world. It is vain to tell them that 
Christ makes a free offer of happiness to 
them all—if it be not happiness, or be 
not pleasure, in the way they like it. 
They will not part with the earthly for 
the heavenly. They will not give up 
their carnal preferences, to which they 
are urged by nature—for those spiritual 
delights which are held out to every be- 
liever, for his recreation in time, for his 
full and satisfying enjoyment through 
eternity. They do not breathe with any 
kindredness of feeling in a spiritual at- 
mosphere ; and, children as they are of 
sense and secularity, they refuse to turn 
from their own way. They will not 
come unto Christ that they may have 
life ; and He, looking down upon them 
from the mediatorial throne to which He 
has been exalted, sees, that, after all He 
has done to roll away the obstacles be- 
tween earth and heaven—that after the 


The gravitation | 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, 








155 
tion have all been expended—that after 
barriers have been levelled, and crooked 
places been made straight, and rough 
places plain, and a highway for sinners 
has been thrown across the dark and 
dreary infinite which separated them from 
God—that after by the strength of His 
own right arm he had forced this myste- 
rious passage, and planted upon it the 
flag of invitation—He now sees, after 
He has thus brought eternity within their 
reach, that, fastened in the thraldom of 


| their own base and inglorious affections, 
with things present, and agreeably en- 
gaged ; and hence their disinclination to | 


they remain immoveable ; that they con- 
tinue to grovel as before, and it matters 
not to them what facilities have been 
struck out or what the avenues that are 
now opened to the paradise above—be- 
cause earth is dearer to them than 
Heaven ; and the delights of this sensible 
though passing world far more enchant- 
ing to their spirits, than all the splendid 
honours and all the offered joys of im- 
mortality. 

And it is just because this rejection of 
the gospel is a thing of will upon our 
side, that itis a thing of provocation upon 
His side. Had our unbelief been the 
blindness of those who could not see, 
there would have been no room for wrath 
on the part of the Saviour. But it is the 
blindness of those who will not see; and 
it is this which gives its moral force to 
the remonstrance—“ Ye will not come— 
or rather ye are not willing to come that 
ye may have life.’ We can be at no 
loss to perceive, how the Saviour must 
stand affected by this treatment on man’s 
part of that economy over which He now 
presides, and which He Himself hath so 
laboriously instituted. The scorn, or at 
least the apathy, wherewith man puts the 
glories of the purchased inheritance away 
from him—the choice that he still makes 
of time, after immortality has been thus 
brought near to him—the inefficiency of 
the gospel with all its encouragements, 
to lure him from the world and bring 
him to reconciliation with God—the sin- 
ful and the sordid appetency for earth, 
which not even the now accessible 
Heaven with its pure and perpetual joys 
can overcome—the inert and invincible 
sluggishness, wherewith he still adheres 
to the carnalities of the old man, and 
from which all the proclamations of grace 


toil and the agony of the great propitia-| cannot move nim—the ousy rounds of 


156 


pleasure or of gain or of ambition, at 
which he keeps plying as assiduously, as 
if earth were the platform on which he 
Was to expatiate for ever—All these mark 
such an obstinate affinity to sense, such 
a rooted dislike and diversity of his taste 
from all sacredness, as will go most effec- 
tually on the day of judgment to charac- 
terize and to condemn him. The free 
gospel hath acted as a criterion, for fixing 
on which side of the question between 
earth and Heaven it is that his affections 
lie. And Ele who sees him from the 
place of ascension which He now occu- 
pies—He who hath consecrated for him, 
by His own blood, a path by which the 


sinner if he will might return unto God: 


—if in the face of this the sinner will not, 
might not He the Saviour, on the day in 
which He comes down and takes account 
of the world, fill his mouth with an over- 
whelming argument? Will not that be 
a clear justice, which shuts out from the 
high and the holy abode, him who all 
life long hath persisted in the earthliness 
which he loved, and from which even 
the open gate of Heaven and the voice 
of welcome that issued therefrom could 
not disengage him? In going up unto 
Heaven Christ is said to have arisen 
there for our justification. But in coming 
down from Heaven, He will come for the 
enhanced condemnation of those who 
have declined His grace, and so have 
kept by their own guiltiness. They 
shall be made to eat the fruit of their 
own ways ; and as they chose to walk in 
their own counsels, by these counsels 
they shall fall. 

That prisoner is not to blame, who 
makes no attempt to escape from the dun- 
geon whose gates are impregnably shut 
against him. But should he refuse the 
guidance of the benefactor who has 
thrown open these gates, and who offers 
to conduct him to a place of enlarge- 
ment, where he shall have air and light 
and liberty—he verily is the author of 
his own undoing, if he pine and perish 
among the noxious damps of his prison- 
house. And it is thus that Christ now 
oflers to set the spiritual captive free. 
He hath cleared away all legal obstruc- 
tions. He hath provided an open door 
of access unto God. He hath opened a 
clear exit for us all from the place of 
condemnation, and now invites us to that 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 


er 


[SERM. 


glorious liberty which consists in the 
service of love and willingness. It is 
not easy to conceive the physical prefer- 
ence of a dark and dismal confinement, 
to a free range on the domain of nature ; 
but we see exemplified every day, the 
moral preference of a continued thraldom 
amongst the idolatries of sense and of the 
world, to an outlet or emancipation of the 
soul into the regions of sacredness and 
of spiritual health and of spiritual har- 
mony. Ours is the era of a great em- 
bassy from heaven to earth; and men 
are beseeched to make good that escape 
from slavery which has been provided in 
the gospel; and Christ, from the emi- 
nence on which He nowstands, is watch- 
ing and witnessing how His messengers 
are received and what is the effect of 
their solicitations. This is the character 
of our interesting period ; and our doom 
for eternity hangs upon it. It is fixed by 
our own choice. Should we love to 
breathe in the atmosphere of spiritual 
death, it is the only atmosphere that we 
shall breathe in for ever. And if now 
that Christ hath gone up into Heaven, 
we follow Him not in faith and by up- 
ward aspirations there—when He again 
comes down from Heaven, He will re- 
cognise us to be still carnal—He will 
deal with us as enemies. 


III. But Christianity implies something 
more than one great and initial surrender 
of affection on the part of the inner man. 
There are daily and hourly services, 
which come historically after this. There 
is something more than one great revul- 
sion from the old habit of nature. We do 
not merely pass into another state. We 
enter upon another path ; and, in so do- 
ing, launch forth among all the activities 
of a sustained and unremitting progress. 
It is not enough that there be in our 
heart the desires of righteousness—there 
must be upon our history the deeds of © 
righteousness. Christ becomes the mas- 
ter of our services, as well as of our affec- 
tions ; and it is not only the heart which 
responds ‘o Him in gratitude, but the 
hand moves, and is obedient at the bid- 
ding of his voice. The one, in fact, is - 
the test of the other. “ Ye are my friends 
if ye do whatsoever I command you.” 
T'o complete the relation between Christ 
and His disciples, He must be throned 


XXL, 
in authority over them, as well as the 
supreme object of their regards; and 
then it is that His doctrine, instead of a 
controversial speculation, becomes the 
efficient principle both of a new character 
and of a new life. The ultimate design 
of His economy, in fact, is not to justify 
but to sanctify men. It is to evolve a 
new moral harmony out of the chaos of 
our present world—and then only do 
His word and doctrine prosper unto that 

for which they have been sent, when the 
disciples thereof emerge into virtue, and 
become thoroughly furnished unto all 
good works. It is when He succeeds 
in making you holy and obedient crea- 
tures, that He sees in you of the travail 
of His soul and is satisfied. The same 
eye which gazed with delight on the 
lilies of the field, perceives with a higher 
delight the efflorescence of Heaven’s 
graces upon your person. The great 
object of His administration, is to build 
up and beautify a moral landscape, in 
the midst of which He might everlast- 
ingly rejoice, And for this purpose, He 
who judgeth by your fruits, would train 
and transform you into trees of righteous- 
ness, which, though rooted in the soil 
and sediment of the world, may, under 
the cultivation of His own spiritual hus- 
bandry, be at length meet for being 
transplanted into the paradise of God. 
Now, it is by acts of Heavenly obedience, 
that you promote this heavenly vegeta- 
tion. It is by the doings of the hand on 
the side of virtue, that you strengthen 
and confirm still more the desires of the 
heart after it. It is by the busy conduct 
of the disciple, that a reflex influence is 
sent back upon his soul; and all those 
principles are fixed more tenaciously than 
before, which enter into the formation of 
the disciple’s character. And so by the 
readier humanity, and the godlier watch- 
fulness, and soberness, and fear of every 
day, do you rise from one degree of 
grace unto another; and carry onward 
that great object of sanctification, which 
the heart of your Redeemer is, if not 
solely, yet supremely set upon. 

Thus it is, that, by the deeds done in 
the body, you will be judged in the great 
day of reckoning. It is upon these that 
our Saviour will demonstrate you to be 
His own. As the tree is known by its 
fruits, so He will make known by your 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, 





157 


deeds to the august assembly of men and 
of angels, that you are of His husbandry, 
and fit for being removed into His Fa- 
ther’s vineyard in Heaven. It is worthy 
of observation, that, on the sentence 
being declared, it will be said that yor. 
are His—not inasmuch as you have be- 
lieved, nor inasmuch as you have de- 
sired, but inasmuch as you have done. 
Your destiny will be made to hang di- 
rect upon your doings—as being in truth 
the best vouchers, both for the feelings of 
your heart, and the faith of your under- 
standing. And we bid you think there- 
fore, of the busy interest and regard 
wherewith your judge in Heaven is now 
looking on; and of the book of record 
and remembrance which is now before 
Him; and of the materials which He is 
now gathering from your each day’s 
history, for the examinations and the 
judgments of a future day. He is now 
on that post of observation, whither He 
has ascended for a season, and whence 
he descries the whole line of your his- 
tory in the wor.d. But that season will 
come to its close; and then there will 
ensue another great movement in God’s 
administration. He who was seen go 
into Heaven, will again come down 
from Heaven; and will be met in living 


;artray by the men of all generations. 


He will come fraught with the archives 
of your present history; and, now your 
vigilant and unerring witness, will He 
then be your impartial judge. Do you 
live under an affecting sense of these 
plain but all important realities? Do 
you ever once think of Christ’s eye 
being upon you? Do you ever once 
think of His judgment awaiting you? 
Do these enter at all as elements into 
your deliberation? And we would ask 
whether it is possible that you can stand 
then with acceptance before him—if 
now, the general habit of your mind be 
that of listless unconcern, either to the 
cognizance which He takes of you at 
present, or to the reckoning which He 
will have with you in future—braving 
alike the omniscience of His present re- 
gards, the justice and the certainty of His 
coming retributions ? 

And now would we have you to Jay it 
upon your consciences, whether you 
indeed lie under a real and practical 
sense of the economy which has been 


158 


set up at this period of the world— 
whether you conform to the spirit and 
the character of God’s existing adminis- 
tration—whether, while the Judge at 
Elis right hand is impending over you 
and marking all your ways, you at the 
same time feel and move as if an eye 
from Heaven were looking on—or 
whether, as if disjoined from all relation- 
ship with aught that is above, or as if 
the planet that you occupy had drifted 
away beyond the cognizance of the 
upper world, is the whole style of your 
history upon earth just what it would 
have been, though the ascended Jesus 
had taken His eternal leave ; and, on 
quitting the abodes of humanity, had 
quitted all superintendence of our con- 
cerns? But he causes us to know in 
the text, that He has not so quitted us— 
that He still keeps a hold of our species 
—that, instead of having left us for ever, 
He is to come again and to have a visi- 
ble meeting with each and all of the 
members of the human family—that, 
however now He may stand concealed 
from mortal view in the remoteness and 
mystery of the place to which He has 
gone, the time is coming when every 
eye shall behold Him; and the gaze of 
4 universal world shall be turned to- 
wards Him, as He approaches the judg- 
ment-seat fraught with the materials of a 
solemn examination; and which mate- 
tials He is now gathering from the 
doings of your present day, and of your 
past yesterday, and of your future mor- 
row—thereby stamping an eternal im- 
portance on all the passages of your fa- 
miliar history, and giving to the hourly 
details of your business in life a bearing 
on your destiny for ever. And tell me, 
ve men who from Sabbath to Sabbath 
reathe in no other air than that of irre- 
ligion, and who if you do come to 
church receive but a passing emotion, 
that, like the glow of sentiment or poetry, 
soon vanishes away—tell me how it is 
possible that you can escape the frown 
and the condemnation and the lawful 
penalty, when thus the whole habit of 
your existence is at utter variance with 
the realities of your state ; and you shall 
have passed from your infancy to your 
grave as recklessly along, as if there 
were to be no resurrection, no trial, no 
fearfulness beyond death, no life that can 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 


[SERM. 


feel or suffer or be the subject of wrath 
and anguish and tribulation through 
eternity. | 

We may conclude with stating what 
appears to us one great distinction be- 
tween a religionist and an ordinary man. 
There is a pervading unity and great- 
ness of object in the life of the former. 
In that of the latter there is a fitful and 
fluctuating waywardness. ‘The one is 
like a voyage, where the drift of every 
movement is towards a certain quarter of 
the heavens, and with the view to a fixed 
place of arrival. The other is like the 
random, the ever-varying course of a ves- 
sel, that has been abandoned and is at the 
mercy of a thousand capricious impulses. 
The one, in selecting his end, has shot 
ahead as it were of all that is intermedi- 
ate between him and the grave; and so 
his high and habitual reference is ever 
towards that place in the history of his 
being, which forms the exit of his time 
—the entrance of his eternity. The 
other may have selected his ends also; 
but lying a short way in the distance be- 
fore him, they are ever shifting and 
shaping anew among the mutabilities of 
life, with the deceits of human fancy, 
with the disappointments of human fore- 
sight. The one familiarly conversant 
with the great elements of death and 
judgment and life everlasting, moves 
along the path which bears him onward 
with the lofty consciousness of one, the 
simplicity yet comprehensive grandeur 
of whose aim sublimes his spirit above 
the cares and the passions of common- 
place humanity. ‘The other, heedless 
and perhaps unseeing of the remote but 
ever-during interest of his existence, va- 
cillates and is lost in the countless multi- 
tude of those lesser influences, each of 
which gains one little hour of ascendan- 
cy, and then passes fruitless and forgot- 
ten away from him. His journey is like 
the aimless ramble of a schoolboy, when 
compared to the high bearing of him 
who walks through life with the gait of 
an immortal creature—who knows that 
every footstep brings him nearer to Hea- 
ven, and whose daily advances in sancti- 
fication are the stepping-stones by which 
he is conducted to Heaven’s glory. 

The advice of that wise moralist, Dr. 
Johnson, to a friend, under the discom. 
fort of some sore annoyance—was to he- 





ie 


think himself of what a trifle it should 
appear that day twelvemonth. And thus 
it is that human life is dissipated in a 
series of trifles. On looking back to that 
busy alternation of cares, and wishes, and 
anxieties, each of which has in its turn 
been the short-lived tenant of man’s rest- 
less and ever-brooding spirit, we cannot 
miss the reflection—what a waste both 
of comfort and energy on topics which, 
after ail, have been productive of nothing. 
It is high time to recall ourselves from 
these fugitive vanities—to strike a nobler 
aim, and seek a more enduring interest 
—and, for this purpose, to cast a further 
anticipation on the futurity which lies 
before us. And along the whole of this 
perspective, there seems no event, the 
contemplation of which is more fitted to 
still the spirit into seriousness, or bring 
it up to the high resolves of Christianity, 
than the coming advent of the Saviour— 
an event on one side of which lie all the 
recollections of time, and on the other side 
all the retributions of eternity. Mean- 
while, and ere He take the decisive 
movernent from the mercy-seat which 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 


159 


He now fills in Heaven, to the judgment- 
seat which He then will occupy on earth, 
He bids you all flee from the coming 
wrath—He holds out even to the guiltiest 
of you all the sceptre of an offered recon- 
ciliation—He plies you alike with the 
overtures of pardon and the calls of re- 
pentance ; a pardon sealed by the blood 
of a satisfying atonement, in which He 
invites you to trust, and a repentance 
achieved through the aids of a strength- 
ening spirit, for which he invites you to 
pray. ‘This is the season of your full and 
welcome opportunity. That will be the 
day of your trial. Now you are urged 
by the entreaties of a free gospel, and by 
compliance therewith, you propitiate the 
wrath of the offended Saviour. Then, 
should you have withheld compliance, 
will you be judged by the requisitions 
of a fiery law; and the unaverted, the 
aggravated wrath of Heaven, will descend 
in judgment upon your heads. “O kiss 
the Son, then, lest He be angry, and 
while He is in the way—for biessed only 
shall they be who have put their trust in 
Him.” 


SERMON XXIi. 
God is Love. 


* God is love.”—Joun iv. 16. 


Dip we only give credit to the text, 
did we but view God as love—on this 
simple translation into another belief, 
’ would there be the translation into an- 
other character. We should feel differ- 
ently of God, the moment that we thought 
of Him differently ; and with the estab- 
lishment of this new faith, there would 
instantly emerge a new heart and a new 
nature. 

For, let us attena, im tne first piace, to 
the original conception of Humanity, 
placed and constituted as it now is, m 
reference to this great and invisible Be- 
ing—secondly, let us adduce the likeliest 
considerations, the likeliest arguments, 
by which to overcome this conception, 
and to find lodgement in the human 
breast for another and an opposite con- 


ception in its place—And, thirdly, let us 
stop to contemplate the effect of such a 
change in the state of man’s understand- 
ing as to God, on the whole system of 
his feelings and conduct. 


I. Under the first general head, then, 

let it be observed—that there are two 
reasons why we should conceive God to 
| be so actuated as to inspire us with terror, 
or at leas. witk distrust; instead of con- 
ceiving Him to be actuated by that love 
which the text ascribes to Him; and 
which were no sooner believed than it 
would set us at ease, and inspire us with 

delightful confidence. 

1. The first of these reasons, which 
we shall allege, admits of being illus- 
|trated by a very genera experience of 


.60 


human nature. It may be shortly stated 
thus— W henever placed within the reach 
of any Being, of imagined power, but 
withal of unknown purpose—that Being 
is the object of our dismay. It is not 
necessary for this, that we should be 
positively assured of His hostility. It is 
enough, that, for aught we know, He 
may be hostile; and that, for aught we 
know, He has strength enough for the 
execution of His displeasure. Uncer- 
tainty alone will beget terror; and the 
fancies of mere ignorance, are ever found 
to be images of fear. It is thus, that a 
certain recoil of dread and aversion, 
would be felt in the presence of a strange 
animal, whatever the gentleness of its 
nature—if simply its nature were un- 
known. And hence, too, the fear of a 
child for strangers, who must first make 
demonstration of their love by their gifts, 
or their caresses—ere they can woo it 
into confidence. And so also the conster- 
nation of savages, on the first approach 
of a mighty vessel to their shores—more 
especially if in smoke, and thunder, ana 
feats of marvellous exhibition, it hath 
given the evidence of its power. It may 
be a voyage of benevolence; but this 
they as yet know not. They only be- 
hold the power ; and power beheld singly 
is tremendous. And many often are 
the vain attempts at approximation, the 
fruitless demonstrations and signals of 
good-will, ere they can conquer their 
distrust; or recall them to free and fear- 
less intercourse, from the woods or the 
lurking-places to which they had fled for 
safety. Such, then, is the universal bias 
of nature, whenever the power is known 
and the purpose is unknown. Men give 
way to the visions of terror, to the dark 
misgivings of a troubled imagination. 
The quick and instant suggestion, on all 
these occasions, is that of fear; and the 
difficulty, an exceeding difficulty, for it 
is as if working against a constitutional 
law or tendency of the heart, is to re- 
assure it into confidence. 

If such then be the effect on human 
feelings of a power that is known, asso- 
ciated with purposes that are unknown— 
we are not to wonder that the great and 
invisible God is invested to our eyes with 
the imagery of terror. It is verily be- 
cause great, and at the same time invisi- 
ble, that we so invest Him. It is precisely 


GOD IS LOVE. 





[SERM. 


because the Being who hath all the ener- 
gies of nature at command, is at the same 
time shrouded in mystery impenetrable 
—that we view Him as tremendous. All] 
regarding Him is inscrutable—the depths 
of His past eternity—the mighty and un- 
known extent of his creation—the secret 
policy or end of His government, a gov- 
ernment that embraces an infinity of 
worlds, and reaches forward to an infin- 
ity of ages—All these leave a being so 
circumscribed in his faculties as man, 
so limited in his duration and there- 
fore in his experience, in profoundest ig- 
norance of God and of His ways. And 
then the inaccessible retirement in which 
He hides himself from the observation 
of His creatures here below—the clouds 
and darkness which are about the pavil- 
ion of His residence—the utter impo- 
tency of man, to pierce his way beyond 
the confines of that materialism which 
hems and incloses him, so as at all to fa- 
thom the essence of the Godhead, or to 
obtain any distinct apprehension of His 
personality and His Being—the silence 
the deep unbroken silence of many cen- 
turies, insomuch that nature, however 
distinctly it may tell of His existence, is 
to our senses a screen of interception in 
the way of nature’s God. There is a 
mighty gulph of separation—an interval, 
a mysterious and untrodden interval, be- 
tween the spirituality of the Godhead on 
the one hand, and all that the eye of 
man can see or the ear of man can hear 
upon the other—a barrier, which man 
with all his powers of curious and 
searching inspection cannot force; and 
across which God, at least for many 
ages, hath sent forth no direct or visible 
manifestation of His own person or His 
own character. And so, whatever the 
confidence or the manifested kindness 
may have been in those primeval days, 
when God walked with man in the bow- 
ers of his earthly paradise and among 
the smiling beauties of its garden—cer- 
tain it is, that now, exiled from the di- 
vine presence, all his confidence has fled. 
Now that the divinity is withdrawn from 
mortal view, man trembles at the thought - 
of Him; and the dread imagination, 
whether of a present wrath or a coming 
vengeance, is the only homage Sk 
nature renders to an unknown God. 

And there is nothing in the varying 





XXI1.] Gov is 
aspects of Creation, or in the varying 
fortunes of human life, which can at all 
alleviate our perplexity, in regard to the 
final designs or character of God. For 
if, on the one hand, the smile and the 
sunshine and the softer beauties of the 
landscape, would seem to picture forth 
the milder virtues of the Divinity—these 
are alternated by other and opposite ex- 
pressions, in the sweeping flood, and the 
angry tempest, and that dread thunder 
from the skies wherewith the mysterious 
Being who rules in the firmament above 
overawes a prostrate world. And if, on 
the one hand, the shelter and abundance 
and natural affection and unnumbered 
sweets of many a cottage home, might 
serve to indicate the profuse benevolence 
of Him who is the great, the universal 
Parent of the human family—on the 
other, the cares ; the heart-burnings; the 
moral discomforts ; often the pining sick- 
ness, or cold and cheerless poverty; 
more largely and palpably still the fierce 
contests unto blood and mutual destruc- 
tion, even among civilized men; and 
lastly, as if to crown and consummate 
all, the death, the unsparing and relent- 
less death, which sweeps off generation 
after generation, and, in like ghastly tri- 
umph, whether among the abodes of the 
prosperous or unhappy, after the brief 
subsistence of a few little years, lays all 
the varieties of human fortune in the dust 
—These, on the other hand, bespeak, if 
not a malignant, at least an offended 
Deity. It is in the midst of such contra- 
dictory appearances, that the question of 
the divine administration becomes a pro- 
found, a hopeless enigma—at once to 
exercise and baffle all spirits; and the 
lofty, the unapproachable Being, who 
presides over it, is the object of our 
dread because to us mantled in deepest 
obscurity, is terrible because unknown. 

We have only explained one of the 
two reasons, why nature’s conception of 
God, is such as to inspire terror rather 
than our grateful or rejoicing confidence ; 
and, ere we proceed to the consideration 
of the second, we feel strongly inclined, 
though we should thereby anticipate the 
next head of discourse, to state, even 
now, and in immediate sequence to our 
first reason for thinking hardly and ad- 
versely of God, to state, and as far as we 
| al 


LOVE. 161 
are ab.e, enforce fae appropriate counter- 
part argument, by which that reason may 
be met and ought to be overcome. 

The argument then that we are in 
quest of, is not to be found in the whole 
range or within the whole compass of 
visible nature. It is only to be found in 
one of the doctrines of the gospel of Je- 
sus Christ. A certain distrust, nay a 
certain terror, will still continue to haunt 
and to disquiet us—so long as any ambi- 
gulty continues to rest on the character 
of God. But there is such an ambiguity ; 
and which no observation of nature, or 
no experience of human life can dissi- 
pate. Whatever of the falsely or the su- 


perstitiously fearful imagination conjures 


up, because of God being at a distance, 
can only be dispelled by God, brought 
nigh unto us. ‘The spiritual must be- 
come sensible. The vail which hides 
the unseen God from the eye of mortals, 
must be somehow withdrawn. Now all 
this has been done once, and done only, 
in the incarnation of Jesus Christ—He 
being the brightness of His Father's 
glory, and the express image of His per- 
son. The Godhead became palpable to 
human senses; and man could behold, 
as in a picture or in distinct personifica- 
tion, the very characteristics of the Being 
who made him. Then truly did men 
hold converse with Immanuel, which is, 
being interpreted, God with us. They 
saw His glory in the face of Jesus Christ ; 
and the very characteristics of the Divin- 
ity Himself may be said to have appeared 
in authentic representation before them, 
when God manifest in the flesh de- 
scended on Judea and sojourned amongst 
its earthly tabernacles. By this myste- 
rious movement from Heaven to Earth, 
the dark the untrodden interval, which 
separates the Corporeal from the Spiri- 
tual, was at length overcome. The King 
eternal and invisible was then placed 
within the ken of mortals. ‘They saw 
the Son, and in Him saw the Father also 
—so that while contemplating the person 
and. the history of a man, they could 
make a study of the Godhead. 

And it is thus the unequivocal demon- 
stration has been given, that God is love. 
We could not scale the heights of that 
mysterious ascent, which might bring us 
within view of the Godhead. It is by 


162 


the descent of the Godhead ur:o us, that 
this great manifestation has been given ; 
and we learn and know of God, from the 
wondrous history of Him who went about 
doing good continually. We could not 
go in search of the viewless Deity, 
through the depths and the vastnesses of 
Infinitude ; or discover the secret, the un- 
told purposes, that were brooding there. 
But in no way could a more palpable ex- 
hibition have been made, than when the 
eternal Son shrined in humanity stepped 
forth on the platform of visible things, 
and on the proclaimed errand to seek 
and to save us. We can now read the 
character of God, in the human looks 
and in the human language of Him, who 
is the very image and visible representa- 
tion of the Deity. We see it in the tears 
of sympathy which He shed. We hear 
it in the accents of tenderness which fell 
from Him. Even His very remonstran- 
ces were those of a meek and gentle na- 
ture ; for they are remonstrances of deep- 
est pathos, the complaints of a longing 
and affectionate spirit, against the sad 
perversity of men bent on their own un- 
doing. When visited with the fear that 
God looks hardly and adversely towards 
us, let us think of Him who had com- 
passion on the famishing multitudes ; of 
Him who mourned with the sisters of 
Lazarus; of Him who, when He ap- 
proached the city of Jerusalem wept over 
it, at the thought of its coming desolation. 
And knowing that the Son is like unto 
the Father, let us re-assure our hopes 
with the certainty that God is love. 

2. But there is still another reason, 
why, instead of viewing God as love, we 
should apprehend Him to be a God of 
severity and of stern displeasure. And 
it is not, like the former, but a fearful im- 
agination, a mere product of uncertainty 
—or resulting from a headlong bias, on 
the part of the human mind, to the super- 
stitiously dark and terrific, when employ- 
ed in contemplating what is vast and at 
the same time unknown. It has a firmer 
basis to rest upon—not conjured up by 
fancy from a distant land of shadows; 
but drawn from the intimacies of one’s 
own consciousness, and suggested by 
one of the surest facts or findings in the 
homestead of man’s moral nature. The 
truth is that, by the constitution of human- 
ity, there is a law of right and wrong in 


GOD IS LOVE. 


[SERM. 


every heart ; and which each possessor 
of that heart knows himse.f to have ha- 
bitually violated. But more than this. 
Along with the felt certainly of such 
a law, there is the resistless apprehension 
of a Lawgiver ; of a God offended by the 
disobedience of His creatures ; ofa Judge, 
and so of a judgment that awaits us; of 
a governor, or king in Heaven, between 
whom and ourselves there is a yet unset- 
tled controversy, and because of which 
we are disquieted with the thought of a 
reckoning and a vengeance that are to 
come. We cannot view God as Love, 
at the very time that conscience so pow- 
erfully tells us to view Him as an enemy. 
Even though the lights of Nature and 
Christianity should conspire to inform us 
that love is a general characteristic of the 
Divinity, we cannot feel the personal or 
practical influence of such a contempla- 
tion, so long as we are sensible of His 
special and merited displeasure ; and that 
the truth and the justice and the high and 
holy attributes of a nature which is un- 
changeable, seem imperiously to require 
that this displeasure shall be executed.— 
While haunted by the misgivings of a 
guilty nature, which tells us of our own 
danger and our own insecurity, we could 
no more delight ourselves with the gen- 
eral benevolence of God—than we could 
luxuriate in tasteful contemplation over 
the beauties, which, far and wide, even to 
the most distant horizon, surrounded the 
mountain’s base, if ourselves exposed to 
the menaces of a bursting volcano that 
was above our head. It is thus that we 
lose all sense of God, so long as we view 
God through the medium of our own 
troubled consciences. Even though rea- 
soning alone were to establish this beau- 
tiful property in God, as an article of 
calm and philosophical conviction, the 
agitations of terror grounded on the con- 
sciousness of our self-deservings, would 
disturb this conviction or displace it alto- 
gether. This is not a mere spectral 
alarm as the former, but has both a 
definite object and definite cause ; and, in- 
stead of an airy imagination, is grounded 
on the universal sense, which nature has ot 
its own actual and ascertained guiltiness. 

And this apprehension is not more 
general than it is strong, and not to be 
overcome by a mere eloquent or senti- 
mental representation of the Deity—as if 


XXII] 


He possessed but the one characteristic of 
tenderness; or as if this were the single 
excellence of a moral nature, signalized 
by all that is high and all that is holy.— 
There is a meagre theology that would 
fain resolve the entire character of God 
into the one attribute of kindness; but 
there is a theology of conscience that 
_ maintains the ascendancy notwithstand- 
img, and keeps its ground against this 
frail imagination. ‘To Him who is seat- 
ed on the throne of the universe, we, in 
spite of ourselves, ascribe the virtues of 


the Sovereign as well as the virtues of | 


the parent ; and, however much it might 
have suited our convenience and our 
wishes, that we could at all times have 
taken refuge in the general and indefin- 
ite placability of God, there are certain 
immutabilities of truth and nature that 
cannot thus be disposed of. For, attempt 
it as we will, we cannot find repose in 
the imagination of a law without enforce- 
ments, of a lawgiver without authority, 
of a government without sanctions, of a 
sentence without effect, and so of guilt 
without the execution of its proclaimed 
and threatened penalty. And thus the 
ever-meddling conscience within, as irre- 
pressible as it is importunate, keeps man 
in perpetual fear of God; and tells him, 
with felt authority too, that it is a_well- 
grounded fear. We cannot rid from our 
apprehension a jurisprudence, a strict 
and guarded and awful jurisprudence, 
which enters into the relationship be- 
tween Heaven and earth; and the hon- 
ours of which cannot be let down, with- 
out despoiling the sanctuary of God of all 
that is great and all that is venerable — 
We cannot think of God with confidence 
or hope, whilst we think of ourselves as 
delinquents at the bar of that august and 
unviolable tribunal where He sitteth in 
judgment over us. We cannot even see 
Him to be love, through the troubled me- 
dium of remorse and fear; and far less 
rejoice or take comfort in it as a love 
directed to ourselves. 

Now, as in counteraction to our first 
reason for viewing God with apprehen- 
sion and thus losing sight of Him as a 
God of love, we adduced one peculiar 
doctrine of Christianity—so, in coun- 
teraction to our second reason, we now 
adduce another peculiar doctrine of 
Christianity ; and that by far the noblest 


GOD IS LOVE. 


163 


and most precious of its articles. The 
one was the doctrine of the Incarnation, 
The other is the doctrine of the Atone- 
ment. ‘ Herein is love, not that we loved 
God, but that God loved us, and sent His 
Son into the world to be the propitiation 
for our sins.” By the former, a con- 
quest has been made over the imagina- 
tions of ignorance. By the latter, a con- 
quest has been made over, not the ima- 
ginations, but the solid and well-grounded 
fears of guilt. By the one, or through 
means of a divine incarnation, we are 
told of the Deity embodied ; and thus 
the love of God has been made the sub-: 
ject, as it were, of ocular demonstration. 
By the other, or through means of a di- 
vine Sacrifice, we are told of the Deity 
propitiated ; and thus the love of God has 
been made to shine forth, in midst of the 
law’s sustained and vindicated honours. 
It is this conjunction of mercy with 
truth and righteousness ; it is this har- 
mony of all the divine attributes in the 
scheme of reconciliation ; it is this skil- 
ful congruity established in the gospel, 
between the salvation of the sinner and 
the authority as well as justice of the 
Sovereign—which so adapts the media- 
torial economy under which we sit, to all 
the wants and exigencies of our fallen 
nature. A naked proclamation of mercy 
could not have set the conscience at rest, 
could never have effectually hushed those 
perpetual misgivings wherewith the 
heart of the sinner is haunted,—who, by 
the very constitution of his moral nature, 
must, when he does think of God, think 
and tremble before him as a God of jus- 
tice. This it is which letteth; and, ere 
peace and confidence can be fully or 
firmly restored to the sinner’s distempered 
bosom, that which letteth must be taken 
out of the way. And it has been taken 
out of the way—for now nailed to the 
cross of Christ. In this glorious spec- 
tacle do we see the mystery resolved ; 
and the compassion of the parent meeting 
in fullest harmony, with the now assert- 
ed, the now vindicated prerogatives of 
the lawgiver. We there behold justice 
satisfied and merey made sure. ‘The 
gospel of Jesus Christ is a halo of all the 
attributes ; and yet the pre-eminent man _ 
festation there is of God as love—for it 
is love, not only rejoicing over all the 
works, but shrined in full consent while 


{64 


shedding erhanced lustre amidst all the 
perfections of the divine nature. 

And here tt should be especially no- 
ticed, that the atonement made for the 
sins of the world, though its direct and 

rimary object be to vindicate the truth 
and justice of the Godhead—ainstead of 
casting obscuration over His love, only 
gives more emphatic demonstration of it. 
For instead of love, simple, and sponta- 
neous, and finding its unimpeded way, 
- without obstruction and without difficulty 

‘to the happiness of its objects—it was a 
love, which, ere it could reach the guilty 
millions whom it longed after, had to 
face the barrier of a moral necessity, that 
to all but infinite strength and infinite 
wisdom was insuperable. It was a love 
which had te force aside the mountain of 
those iniquities that separated us from 
God. The-high and holy characteris- 
tics of a Being who is unchangeable 
stood in its way ; and the mystery which 
angels desired to look unto, was how the 
King Eternal who sitteth on heaven’s 
throne could at once be a just God and 
a Saviour. The love of God, in con- 
flict with such an obstacle and triumph- 
wg over it, is a higher exhibition of the 
attribute, than all the love which radiates 
from His throne on the sinless families 
of the unfallen. And then we are taught, 
that, for the achievement of this mighty 
deliverance, not only had the Captain of 
our salvation to travel in the greatness 
of His strength, but to sustain a deep 
and dreadful endurance. ‘The redemp- 
tion of mankind was wrought out, in the 
midst of agonies and cries and all the 
symptoms of a sore and bitter humilia- 
tion. He was wounded for our trans- 
gressions ; He was bruised for our ini- 
quities ; on Him the chastisement of our 
peace was laid; and when bowing down 
His head unto the sacrifice, He had to 
_ bear the full burden of a world’s expia- 
tion. The affirmation that God loveth 
the world is inconceivably heightened in 
significancy and strength of evidence, to 
him who owns the authority of Scrip- 
ture, and has treasured up these sayings 
—that God so loved the world asto give 
His only begotten Son; or, that He 
spared not His own Son, but delivered 
Him up for usall; or, that herein is love, 
not that we loved God, but that God loved 
us and sent His Son into the world, to be 


GOD IS 


LOVE. [SERM. 
the propitiation for our sins. There isa 
moral, a depth and intensity of meaning, 
a richness of sentiment that the Bible 
calls unsearchable, in the cross of Christ. 
It tells a sinful world that God is right- 
eousness ; and it as clearly and emphati- 
cally tells us that God is love. 


But, for the purpose of making this 
doctrine available to ourselves personally, 
we must view the love of God, not as a 
vague and inapplicable generality, but 
as specially directed, nay actually prof- 
fered, and that pointedly and individual] 
to each of us. It is not sufficiently a 
verted to by inquirers, nor sufficiently 
urged by ministers, that the constitution 
of the gospel warrants this appropriation 
of its blessings by each man for himself 

This all-important truth, so apt to be 
lost sight of in lax and hazy speculation, 
may be elicited from the very terms 
in which the gospel is propounded to us, 
from the very phraseology in which its 
overtures are couched. It is a message 
of good news unto all people—to me 
therefore as one of the people, for where 
is the scripture which tells that I am an 
outcast? Christ is set forth as a propitia- 
tion for the sins of the world; and God 
so loved the world as to send His Son into 
it. Let me therefore, who beyond all 
doubt am in the world, take the comfort 
of these gracious promulgations—for it is 
only if out of the world, or away from 
the world, that they do not belong to me. 
The delusive imagination in the hearts 
of many, and by which the gospel is 
with them bereft of all significancy and 
effect, is, that they cannot take any gen- 
eral announcement or general invitation 
that is therein to themselves, unless in 
virtue of some certain mark or certain 
designation, by which they are specially 
included in it. Now, in real truth, it 
is all the other way. It would requirea 
certain mark, or certain designation, 
specially to exclude them; and without 
some such mark which might expressly 
signalize them, they should not refuse a 
part in the announcements or invitations 
ofthe gospel. If the gospel have made 
no exception of them, they either misun- 
derstand that gospel, or by their unbelief 
make the author of it a a if they ex: 
cept themselves. ‘They demand a par- 
ticular warrant, for believing that they 


a 


5 


are comprehended within the limits of 
the gospel call to reconciliation with 
God. Now the call is universal ; and it 
would rather need a particular warrant, 
to justify their own dark and distrustful 
imagination of being without its limits. 
When in the spirit of a perverse or 
obstinate melancholy, they ask their 
Christian minister—what is the ground 
on which he would bid them in to the 
household of God’s reconciled family ?— 
well may he ask, what is the ground on 
which they would keep themselves out ? 
He stands on a triumphant vantage-foot- 
ing for his own vindication. His com- 
mission is to preach the gospel to every 
creature under heaven, and that takes 
them in—or to say that whosoever cometh 
unto Christ shall not be cast out, and 
that takes them in—or behold I stand at 
the door and knock, if any man will open 
I shall enter into friendship and peace 
with him, that also takes them in—or 
look unto me all ye ends of the earth and 
be saved ; there is no outcast spoken of 
here, and that too takes them in—or, 
every man who asketh receiveth ; and 
surely, if language have a meaning, that 
takes them in—or Christ came into the 
world to save sinners ; and, unless they 
deny themselves to be sinners, that takes 
them in. In a word, although they 
may cast themselves out, the primary 
overtures of the gospel recognise no out- 
east. ‘They are not forbidden by God— 
they are only forbidden by themselves. 
There is no straitening with Him. The 
straitening is only in their own narrow 
and suspicious and ungenerous bosoms. 
It is true they may abide in spiritual 
darkness if they will—even as a man 
can, at his own pleasure, immure him- 
self in a dungeon, or obstinately shut his 
eyes. Still it holds good, notwithstand- 
ing, that the light of the Sun in the Fir- 
mament is not more open to all eyes, than 
the light of the Sun of Righteousness is 
for the rejoicing of the spirits of all flesh. 
The blessings of the gospel are as ac- 
cessible to all who will, as are the water 
or the air or any of the cheap and com- 
mon bounties of nature. The element of 
Heaven’s love is in as universal diffusion 
among the dwelling-places of men, as is 
the atmosphere they breathe in. It solicits 
admittance at every door; and the igno- 
rance or unbelief of man are the only ob- 


GOD IS LOVE, 








165 


stacles which it has to struggle with. It 
is commensurate with the species; and 
may be tendered, urgently and honestly 
tendered, to each individual of the human 
family. 


IIf, Let us now suppose, in any in- 
stance, that to the tender on the one side 
there is an acceptance upon the other ; 
that God is taken at His word; and, 
instead of being regarded with jealousy 
or terror as a distant and inaccessible 
lawgiver, that He is beheld as a recon- 
ciled Father in Jesus Christ our Lord ; 
that the dark and before impenetrable 
vail, which hitherto had mantled the be- 
nign aspect of the divinity is withdrawn ; 
that the mercy-seat is seen in Heaven, 
not the less to be relied on in its being 
mercy met with truth ; that disclosure is 
made of the love with its smiles of wel- 
come which beams and beckons there, 
not the less but the more to be trusted and 
rejoiced in, that it is a love in full 
conjunction with righteousness—a love 
consecrated with the blood of an everlast- 
ing covenant, and shrined conspicuous 
and triumphant amid the honours ofa vin- 
dicated law. Only imagine a translation 
of this sort, a translation truly out of dark- 
ness into the marvellous light of the gos- 
pel; and do you not perceive, that, with 
the light of the gospel in the mind, the 
love of the gospel in the heart will follow 
in its train ? and that the love of goodwill 
in God, when once seen and recognised 
by us, will surely draw our love of grat- 
itude back again? If we had but the 
perception, the emotion would come un- 
bidden, or, in the words of the apostle, if 
we knew and believed the love which 
God hath to us, we should love God be- 
cause He first loved us. 

And here we may understand the 
regenerating power of Faith. One of its 
functions is to justify. But its higher 
and greater function is to sanctify men. 
Let but the cold obstruction of unbelief 
be removed ; and from that moment, the 
emancipated heart, as if by the operation 
of a charm, will beat freely and willingly 
in love to God, and love for all His 
services. This new faith were the turn- 
ing-point of a new character ; and in the 
difference between God viewed as an 
object of terror, and God viewed as an 
object of confidence—on that single differe 


166 


ence, a complete moral revolution is sus- 
pended. Let me be made to know and 
to believe that God loves me; and, by a 
law of my mental constitution, I shall be 
made to love Him back again. The in- 
tellectual precedes the moral change. It 
is doctrine, an article of doctrine, not in 
the place which it occupies as the dogma 
of a theological system, but as actually 
seated in the heart and the article there 
of a substantial and living creed—it is 
this which subdues the whole man into a 
new creature. The executive power of 
working this great transformation lies in 
the truth. In other words, let the faith of 
the gospel enter the breast of any indi- 
vidual, and it will renovate the man. 
Let the faith be universal, and we shall 
have a renovated world. 

We might here indulge in the brilliant 
perspective of a regenerated species, and 
that through the practicable stepping- 
stone, of a declared gospel—seeing that 
if its doctrine of God loving the world 
were as generally accepted as it might 
be heralded through all our pulpits, a na- 
tion would be born inaday. But let us 
rather at present urge a lesson, which 
each of you might carry personally and 
practically home ; and tell how it is, that 
one might animate his own heart with the 
love of God, and keep this sacred affection 
glowing there. It is not to be summoned 
into being or activity ata call. It is not 
py anv simple or direct effect, that you can 
bid it into operation within you. You 
tan say to the hand, do this, and it do- 
he. But we have no such mastery over 


GOD IS LOVE. © 


[SERN. 


the intractable heart—nor can any of 
its movements be thus subjected to a voli- 
tion or to a voice. We cannot, by a 
mere inward and undirected , Junge 
among the recesses of our menta. consti- 
tution, conjure up any of the emotions at 
our pleasure. ‘T'he true way of bidding 
an emotion into being, is to bid into the 
mind its appropriate and counterpart ob- 
ject. If I want to light up resentment 
in my heart, let me think of the injury 
which provokes it—or to be moved with 
compassion, let me dwell, whether by 
recollection or fancy, on some picture of 
wretchedness—or to be regaled with a 
sense of beauty, let me look objective- 
ly and out of myself on the glories 
of a summer landscape—or to stir up 
within me a grateful affection, let me call 
to remembrance some friendly demon- 
stration of a kind and trusty benefactor— 
or to rekindle in my cold and deserted 
bosom the love of God, let God’s love to ~ 
me be the theme of my believing medi- 
tations. I shall never evoke this affec- 
tion by looking inwardly upon myself ; 
but by looking upwardly to the gospel 
manifestations of the divine character, I 
may bring it down from the sanctuary 
that is above me. In other words it is 
the faith which elicits and calls out the 
feeling ; and thus both the lessons of the 
Bible, and the findings of the experimen- 
tal Christian, are at one with the strict 
philosophy of the process—when they at- 
test that the way to keep our hearts in 
the love of God, is to build ourselves up 
on our most holy faith. : 





SERMON XXIII. 


Fear of Terror and fear of Reverence. 


‘Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.’—1 Perer i. 17. 


In the high and hidden walk of Chris- 
tian experience, there are mental pro- 
cesses, of which the world at large does 
not know, and cannot sympathize with. 
There are even certain apparent contra- 
rieties of feeling, that are fitted to perplex 
those who never realized them—yjust be- 
cause they have never betaken themselves 


- 


in good earnest, to the business of their 
salvation. What more inexplicable for in- 
stance, than that a disciple should grow 
in humility, just as he grows in holiness 
—that he should have a deeper sense of 
abasement upon his spirit, just as he 
should have made a loftier ascent in the 
path of spiritual excellence—that in pro: 


‘4 


ch 


portion as his advancement in virtue is 
obvious to all other men, in that very pro- 
portion he should become the viler in the 
sight of his own eyes. ‘This however is 
not so mysterious perhaps, as certain 
other paradoxes in the life of a gospel 
pilgrim—which wear an air of more 
puzzling. inconsistency still, to the gene- 
ral understanding. What for example 
can be made of this finding on the part 
of the apostle, that when he was weak 
then he was strong—or that when he 
gloried in his infirmities, then he haa 
power to prevail over them—or that 
when he had no confidence in himself, 
then he rejoiced the most, and had the 
greatest success in the whole work and 
warfare of obedience. This mingling 
of incompatibilities in the heart and his- 
tory of believers, goes to stamp upon 
them the character of a very peculiar 
people. It is true, the Bible expressly 
tells us that they are so, and that the pe: 
culiarity lies in their being zealous of 
good works. But it aggravates the pe- 
culiarity yet more, when we behold these 
same people having the utmost zeal for 
the performance of good works, and yet 
the utmost zeal against placing their re- 
liance on them ; the most accomplished 
in all the graces of personal righteousness, 
and yet the least confident of its effect in 
purchasing for them the rewards of Eter- 
nity ; the most eminent of all their fel- 
lows in the virtues of society as well as 
in the virtues of sacredness, yet the most 
forward to disclaim them as articles of 
“merit by which they have earned a suffi- 
~ cient title to the glories and the enjoy- 
ments of Heaven. If Christianity be true 
there must bea solution for all these diffi- 
culties ; a clue by which to guide our 
way, through the intricacies both of 
Christian doctrine and of Christian ex- 
perience; a light, that, to every honest 
and patient inquirer, must at length be 
struck out between the truths of Scripture 
and the trials of his own heart—and in 
quest of which, each of us should betake 
himself to a more diligent study than be- 
fore of the Bible, to a more busy process 
than before of moral and spiritual culti- 
vation. 

The reason why the verse before us 
has suggested these general observations, 
is, because that in regard to the affection 
which it enjoins, the Scripture hath offered 


FEAR OF TERROR AND FEAR OF REVERENCE. 


oa NT 


167 


to us another of its seeming cor. rarieties. 
We are, in one place, led by the apostle 
to regard it as the privilege of Christians, 
that God had not given them the spirit 
of fear—and yet it is the prayer of the 
same apostle in behalf both of himself 
and of his fellow Christians, that they 
might have grace whereby to serve God 
acceptably with reverence and godly 
fear. We are taught by another apostle 
to pass the time of our sojourning here 
in fear. Whereas Zacharias, the father 
of John the Baptist, rejoices in it as a 
privilege of the new dispensation, that 
under it we should serve God without 
fear. The apostle Paul tells us to work 
out our salvation with fear and trembling; 
and yet the apostle John says, that perfect 
love casteth out fear, and he that feareth 
is not perfect. We hope by a further 
attention to this subject—not merely to 
vindicate the wisdom and consistency of 
the Bible in regard to it—but through 
the divine blessing, so to unfold certain 
processes in the work of sanctification, 
as might serve in some degree for the 
practical guidance of those who now 
hear. us. 

It may happen from the poverty of 
human language, that the same term 
should be employed to express two affec- 
tions, which, although they possess a 
common resemblance, have also such 
distinct modifications, as really to differ, 
and that considerably from each other. 
Nay, so wide may be the difference be- 
tween them, that while it is the privilege 
of Christians to be exempted from the 
one, it is their duty to cherish the other 
to the uttermost. This may give rise to 
at least a verbal inconsistency between 
many passages of the Bible—which, 
when cleared away, not only delivers 
this book from a charge which might be 
alleged against it, but may also elicit an 
impressive argument in its favour, by 
manifesting its delicate adaptations to the 
peculiarities of our chequered and com- 
plex Nature. 

In the prosecution of this discourse, 
we shall only remark on that fear where- 
of God is the object—and not on that fear 
which is excited in the heart of an earnest 
and desirous Christian, by the considera- 
tion of those hazards to which his final 
salvation is exposed. 

There is a fear towards God that might 


168 


pe denominated the fear of terror. It is 
the affection of one who is afraid of Him. 
There is in it the alarm of selfishness. 
God is regarded as in a state of displea- 
sure, and as afterwards to wreak that 
displeasure on the person of him who is 
the object of it. There is in this fear a 
dread of God's vengeance. It is at all 
times connected with a view of one’s own 
personal suffering ; and the dire imager 

of pain, and tribulation, and perhaps mail! 
less and irreversible wretchedness, is per- 
haps that which chiefly gives dismay and 
disturbance to his soul. ‘There is an im- 
pression of wrath in the breast of an in- 
censed Deity against him; but there is, 
furthermore, the prospect of some fell and 
fearful infliction from His uplifted hand. 
The fear of the sinner is not lest God 
should be displeased—for were it only 
to stop here, he should feel no care, and 


have no disquietude about the matter. | 


But the fear is, lest himself should be 
destroyed. It is altogether an affection 
of absorbed and concentrated selfishness. 
It terminates upon his own person. It 
is not in the least a moral, but entirely 
an animal feeling—the same with that, 
in virtue of which any inferior creature 
would struggle back from the precipice 
over which it was to be cast; or eye with 
.trembling recoil the weapon that was 
brandished for its extermination. Such 
is the fear of terror.. It carries it in no 
homage to the sacredness of the Divinity 
—yet is aggravated by a sense of that 
sacredness, because then God, regarded 
as a God of unappeasable jealousy, is 
deemed to be intolerant of all evil; and 
the guilt-stricken soul, in looking upward 
to the holiness of the lawgiver, looks for- 
ward to its own destruction in that hide- 
ous and everlasting hell, where the trans- 
gressors of the law find their doom and 
their landing-place. 

Now it is obvious, that, while haunted 
by a fear of this sort, there can be no 
free, or willing, or generous obedience. 
There might be a service of drudgery, 
but not a service of delight—such obe- 
dience as is extorted from a slave by the 
whip of his overseer—but not a free-will 
offering of love or of loyalty. It makes 
all the difference between a slavish and 
a spontaneous obedience—the one ren- 
dered in the oldness of the letter, the 


FEAR OF TERROR AND FEAR OF REVERENCE. 





[SERM. 


one brought about by compulsice of the 
hand, the other by consent of the heart. 
And yet, how shall this translation be 
effected from the spirit of bondage to that 
of liberty 2? How shall we get quit of 
that overwhelming terror, wherewith it 
is impossible that either affection or con- 
fidence can dwell ?—and which so long, 
therefore, as it subsists, must cause the 
religion of a man upon earth, to be wholly — 
dissimilar from that of an angel in Hea- 
ven? For this purpose, and to appease 
the terror of our own Spirits, shall we 
shut our eyes to what is really terrible 
in the character of God? Shall we view 
Him otherwise than as a God of holi- 
ness? Shall we dismantle His character 
of its justice, and righteousness, and 
truth? Shall we conceive of Him as 
descending to a compromise with sin, 
and as relenting in aught from His hatred 
and hostility against it? To soften the 
Divinity into an object of our possible 
tenderness and trust, shall we strip Him 
of all His moral attributes but one ; and, 
in the midst of all this wild and wasteful 
anarchy, Shall mercy abide as the onl 
surviving perfection of that God whom 
we deemed to be unchangeable? O, we 
fear, that the constitution of the Godhead 
cannot be so tampered with; and that 
the principles of His everlasting govern- 
ment can never be set aside, nor make 
way to suit the wishes or the conveni- 
ence of sinful man. And the question 
remains, how shall man ever be divested 
of that terror which is inspired by the 
sense of an angry God; and which, at 
the same time, strikes an impotency upon 
all the efforts of Nature to love God, or 
to impregnate with a right spirit any — 
part of the obedience which it renders to 
Him ? 

It is reserved for the gospel of Jesus 
Christ to do away this terror from the 
heart of man, and yet to leave untar- 
nished the holiness of God. It is the 
atonement that was made by Him which 
resolves this mystery—providing at once 
for the deliverance of the sinner, and for 
the dignity of the Sovereign. That 
wrath, which had else been poured forth 
upon the guilty, has all been discharged 
upon the head of their accepted Substi- 
tute; and He, in bowing Himself down 
unto the sacrifice, has both established in 


other in the newness of the spirit—the | full authority the law, and purchased full 


CXIIT.] 


* indemnity for those who had put that 
authority to scorn. This is the great 
transaction, by which the broken fellow- 
ship of earth and Heaven is readjusted ; 
and through this as a free and open me- 
dium of communication, can God rejoice 
as before in all kindness over man, and 
man again place his rejoicing confidence 
in God. On doing so, he is disburdened 
from the terror that had enslaved him, 
and that had given him the spirit of a 
crouching pusillanimity to all his obe- 
dience. He from this moment enters 
into liberty. He is no longer haunted 
by degrading apprehensions about self 
and about safety. He sees God to be at 
peace with him, but in such a way as to 
enhance the sacredness of His now vin- 
dicated character ; and in the very act 
of receiving his forgiveness through the 
hand of a Mediator, he beholds, through- 
out the whole of the august ceremonial, 
the heightened lustre that is thrown over 
the truth, and the justice, and the majesty 
of the Godhead. 

But while this view of God in Christ 
extinguishes one fear—the fear of terror; 
it'awakens another and an altogether dis- 
tinct fear—the fear of reverence. (God is 
no longer regarded as the enemy of the 
sinner ; but in the cross of the Redeemer, 
where this enmity was slain, there is full 
demonstration of a moral nature that is in 
utter repugnancy to sin. He does not 
appear against us in the aspect of a 
Judge ; nor do we hear from His lips the 
voice of condemnation for sins that are 
past. But still there is distinctly heard 
from the mercy-seat the voice of a Father, 
who, along with the utterance of our 
pardon, bids us go and sin no more. 
Now that we have entered into reconcilia- 
tion, we hear not the upbraidings of the 
lawgiver, for the despite which in former 
days we have done unto His will. But 
the office of the gospel is to regenerate as 
well as reconcile; and every disciple 
who embraces it is met with the saying— 
“This is the will of God even your 
sanctification.” The truth is, that, hav- 
ing found out a way by which to ward 
off the vengeance of sin from your per- 
sons—it is the intent and object of this 
His new administration to root out its ex- 
istence from your hearts. With the sin- 
ner He has entered into a league of ami- 
y; but against sin, and all its serpent 

22 


FEAR OF TERROR AND FEAR OF REVERENCE. 





169 


brood of abominations, He carries on the 
same unsparing and implacable warfare 
as before. Among all the myriads of the 
redeemed, there is not one individual the 
guilt of whose sins has been pardoned, 
the power and the being of whose sins 
shall not be utterly destroyed. Within 
the entire compass of our Redeemer’s 
kingdom, not one subject to the end of 
time ever shall be found, who, ransomed 
from the condemnation of sin, has not 
been reclaimed from sin unto Holiness. 
The great and ultimate design of that 
new economy under which we sit, is to 
restore and to perfect in fallen man the 
lost virtues of the Godhead ; and we only 


conform to this economy, when, after 


having accepted of its offered forgiveness 
and so entered into peace, we look unto 
the venerable image of Him to whom we 
have been brought nigh, that brighten- 
ing unto His resemblance every day, we 
may at length attain to His character and 
be filled with His fullness. 

It will now be understood of all those 
who have beer. translated into this new 
economy, or, to use the language of the 
apostle, whom God hath translated into 
the kingdom of His dear Son, it will be 
understood what the fear is which they 
are relieved from, and what the fear is 
which they retain—or how they, con- 
formably to one passage of the “New 
Testament, can serve God without fear ; 
and at the same time, comformably to 
another passage, can serve Him with 
reverence and. with godly fear. The 
one is that fear which hath torment, and 
which perfect love casteth out. The 
other is that in which the early churches 
are said to have walked, at the time 
when they had rest throughout all Judea 
and Galilee and Samaria, and were edifi- 
ed ; and walking in the fear of the Lord, 
and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, 
were multiplied. The one is that which 
belongs to those fearful and unbelieving, 
of whom it is said that they shall have 
part in the lake which burneth with fire 
and brimstone. The other is that which 
belongs to those of whom it is said, that 
the mercy of the Lord is unto them who 
fear Him. Such is the difference of es- 
timation in Which these two affections 
are held; and such the difference, in 
point of treatment, which they severally 
shall experience. And it does vin- 


170 


dicate the wisdom or discrimination of 
Scripture, it does mark an intelligent 
view both of our nature and of the bear- 
ings which the evangelical system of 
revelation has upon it, when it appears, 
that, confounded though they be under 
one denomination, there is a like differ- 
ence in the properties and characteristics 
of each of them. The one, as we said 
before, is the fear of terror. The other 
is the fear of reverence. When under 
the one, we are looking unto self; and 
the apprehension is, lest a creature so 
sentient should be agonised by sufferings 
that are tocome. When under the other, 
we are looking unto God; and the ap- 
prehension is, lest a Being so sacred 
should look with distaste and dissatisfac- 
tion towards us because of our present 
remaining sinfulness. When the one is 
awakened by a sense of God’s displeas- 
ure, it is because of the vengeance which 
follows in its train. To the other there 
is’ a moral force in the displeasure, 
although there should be no vengeance. 
To conceive the distinction, might we 
imagine an earthly superior, whom we 
hold in reverence both for his rank and 
for his virtues. It might be a reverence 
wholly unaccompanied with terror. It 
might be a fear into which there enters 
no apprehension whatever of pains or of 
penalties. The loss simply of his good 
opinion were enough to awaken it— 
although there should be no physical 
loss or physical suffering incurred by it. 
A mere look of disapprobation from him, 
of whose respectability and worth we had 
the high imagination, like the look of 
Christ upon Peter, would, of itself, be 
felt to agonise all the better sensibilities 
of our nature. 

{It is not even necessary for this, that 
we should incur his displeasure by a 
violation of his legal rights. It were 
simply enough to have incurred his dis- 
esteem by a violation of moral rightness. 
It is not necessary that he-should be 
offended with us, because we have robbed 
him of his dues. It were enough that he 
thought of us unfavourably, because we 
had fallen short of our own duties. Even 
though we had nothing to fear from his 
anger, still we should fear his disappro- 
bation. A mere adverse judgment, al- 
though not followed up by any execu- 
tion, would in itself be grievous to us. 


FEAR OF TERROR AND FEAR OF REVERENCE. 


rite. 


And such is the feeling of a Christian 
towards God. He stands not in the ter- 
ror of any vengeance from His hands— 
yet he would feel an awe in the rebuke 
of His countenance. He trembles not 
under the uplifted arm of an injured 
Deity. Yet the disapproval of His om- 
niscient eye, would in itself be dreadful 
to him. He is not frightened at the 
thought of any coming penalties—yet he 
is solemnized by the notice that God takes — 
of him. In other words, the fear of ter- 
ror is done away, but the fear of rever- 
ence survives it: A sense of God’s mercy, 
as exhibited in the work of our redemp- 
tion, has expelled the one. A sense of 
His holiness, also exhibited there, has 
enhanced and perpetuated the other. The 
two fears are distinct and dissimilar to 
the uttermost. The one is an animal— 
the other is a moralaffection. ‘The one, 
the fear of terror, will descend with the 
accursed into Hell, and have fulfilment 
there in the cries and agonies -of the 
place of torment. The other, the fear 
of reverence, will be borne upward by © 
the redeemed in Heaven, and will there 
pour a deeper and a graver melody into 
the adorations that compass the throne of 
the Eternal. Let us cease to wonder 
then, that the disciples of the New Testa- 
ment are called upon to banish from their 
hearts the first affection, and to retain the 
second—that in one place, they should 
be reproached because of their fearful- 
ness ; and, in another, should be admon- 
ished to live all their days in the fear of 
God. The faith of the gospel harmoni- 
zes both these sentiments. It displaces 
terror. It heightens reverence. 

This, so far from an unintelligible 
mystery, is exemplified in cne of the 
most frequent and familiar relations of 
human life. Let the wife, says the apos- 
tle Paul, reverence her husband; but, 
while in subjection to him, says the apos- 
tle Peter, let her not be afraid with any 
amazement—or, as it means, with any 
terror or consternation. If ever you es- 
teemed a man from whom you had no- 
thing personally to fear—if ever the pre- 
sence of a superior drew an homage of 
profoundest deference from your bosom, 
although you had nought of harm and 
nought of hostility to apprehend from 
him—if you have ever known what it 
was to have an awe cast upon youl spi- 


‘Xxiil.] - FEAR OF TEKROR AND 
rits, when the dignity, whether of virtu- 
ous or intellectual greatness, stood before 
you, even though it beamed in placidness 
upon yourself—then you have had ex- 
_ perimental proof in your own feelings of 
the distinction that we now labour to im- 
press ; and you have found how possible 
it is to be utterly free of all terror towards 
God, and yet to hold Him in deepest 
reverence. 

Such is the wide difference between 
these two affections ; and, corresponding 
to this, there is a difference equally wide 
between the legal and the evangelical 
dispensations. Under the former econo- 
my, the alternative to do this and live, is, 
that if you fail in doing this, you will 
perish everlastingly. Now let this be 
the great stimulus to the performance of 
virtue; and then think of the spirit and 
of the inward character, wherewith they 
are impregnated. It is in fact a charac- 
ter of the most intense selfishness. It is 
the fear of terror which goads him on to 
all his obedience, and compels him to act 
religiously—to walk the servile round of 
many outward conformities, and forcibly 
to refrain his hands from all outward and 
literal transgression. For such a reli- 
gion as this, it is not needed, that he 
should have any capacity of moral prin- 
ciple. It is enough if he have the capa- 
city of animal pain. He is driven along, 
not by the feelings of his spiritual, but by 
those of his sentient nature ; and, instead 
of liberal or spontaneous piety, we be- 
hold, in the multitude of his operose but 
unwilling drudgeries, all the baseness of 
a sordid and superstitious devoteeship. 
That obedience which is given witha 
view to purchase, either the enjoyments 
of Heaven or exemption from the ago- 
nies of hell, may evince a taste for hap- 
piness ; but this is altogether distinct from 
a taste for holiness—or it may evince a 
distaste for suffering, but this is not a 
distaste for sin. It is thus that we hold 
the legal economy to be not more adverse 
to the comfort, than it is to the character 
of man. It taints and vitiates the moral- 
ity which it professes to idolize. It puts 
‘the alloy of an ignoble quality into all its 
services. Its constant demand is for vir- 
tue—on which however it inflicts the ut- 
most degradation—causing principle to 
sink into prudence; and transforming 
him ~vho inight else have been a gene- 





FEAF, OF REVERENCE. 17 
rous aspirant after the excellence that is 
godlike, into a morose and mercenary 
hireling.—So that, instead of loving right- 
eousness for itself, or of hating iniquity 
for itself, he wretchedly drivels at the 
services of the one, and only for the pro- 
mised reward ; and represses his desires 
towards the other, only because of the 
threatened vengeance. | 
Now it is not so with the economy of 
the gospel. ‘The gate of Heaven’ is 
thrown open at the outset to its disciples ; 
and they were invited with confident step 
to walk towards it. God holds Himself 
forth not as a Judge who reckons, but as 
a Father who is reconciled to them. A 
deed of remission for the sins that are 
past is put into their hands; and where- 
as before, they, under a sense of guilt, 
may have been troubled at the sight of 
God’s offended sacredness, they have now 
beneath the covert of an ample and tothem 
freely extended mediatorship, taken their 
secure refuge from the storm. The fear 
of terror ought now to have no place in 
hearts, occupied by a grateful and rejoic- 
ing love, that should cast it away from 
them ; but there is nothing in this transi- 
tion from Nature to Grace, nothing in 
this renouncing of our own righteousness 
and relying on Christ as our alone Sa- 
viour, nothing in this change of the le- 
gal for the evangelical, that is fitted to 
extinguish—there is every thing to en- 
hance within us the fear of reverence. 
When God is seen by us in the face of 
Christ, He is seen in the brightness of 
His mercy to the sinful; but it is a mer- 
cy so accompanied with holiness and 
truth, so enshrined as it were in the high 
honours of a vindicated law, as to throw 
over the character of the Godhead a 
deeper sacredness than before. In that 
halo which is over the mercy-seat of 
Christianity, there is a radiance of all the 
attributes. Along with the love which 
gladdens every believer’s heart, there is 
an august and awful majesty to solemnize 
it, and while in this wondrous spectacle, 
we behold peace to the sinner—yet, seen 
as it is through the mystery of a world’s 
atonement, we there too behold the evil of 
sin in most full and appalling demonstra- 
tion. While the sinner looked upon all 
this as the fire of Heaven’s jealousy, di- 
rected against himself, to burn up and 
fierce.y to destroy, there was but room 


172 


in his heart for the one affection of sin- 
gle and overwhelming terror. But 
when seen as it is, averted from us be- 
cause discharged upon Him who for our 
sake sustained the agonies of the garden 
and of the cross, he can look on without 
the fear of terror—yet it is impossible to 
look intelligently on without the fear of 
deepest reverence. It is a like difference 
with that which obtains between the 
sight of a volcano from a place of expo- 
sure, and from a place of safety. In the 
one there are the emotions of an absorb- 
ing terror, in a mind occupied with self. 
In the other there are the emotions of an 
admiring taste, in a mind occupied with 
the scene of contemplation. But for the 
full enjoyment of this scene, a degree of 
conscious security is indispensable. A 
sense of danger would disturb, and des- 
pair would utterly destroy it; and not 
without a certain belief of personal safety, 
would the fine sensibilities of taste have 
their play in the spectator’s bosom. His 
soul must be in a state of repose, ere it 
can reflect those characters of grandeur 
or of gracefulness which lie on the pano- 
rama before it; nor could it take ona 
true impression of its varied imagery, if 
ruffled by apprehension, or, still more, if 
tempest-driven among the hazards of the 
fiery torrent and of the earthquake. 
There would be one engrossing sensi- 
bility that dispossessed all others ; and, 
till it was hushed by a sense of protection 
and of safety, neither the graces nor the 
sublimities of a perspective so marvellous 
could have any charm for his imagina- 
tion—alike insensible to the gorgeous- 
ness that blazed upon the mountain-top, 
or to the verdant beauty that smiled 
around its base. 

It is just so in reference to God—more 
terrible as He is to the sinner’s eye, 
than the fiercest and most menacing 
volcano, when viewed only in the light 
of an incensed lawgiver. The sinner is 
at that time otherwise employed, than in 
an admiring survey of the beauty or the 
nobleness of the Divine character. His 
great concern is about himself. His 
overwhelming anxiety is about his own 
prospects. He has not time, or at least 
he has not tranquillity, among the agita- 
tions of a perturbed spirit, for what may 
be called a contemplative study of the 
Godhead. And as in our case of illus- 


FEAR OF TERROR AND FEAR OF REVERENCE. 


[SERM. 


tration, all the tasteful sensibilities were 
in abeyance, while death and destruction 
were conceived to be at hand—so all the 
moral sensibilities towards God are 
equally in abeyance, when the mind is 
engrossed with the dread of his ven- 
geance, or looks onward to that fright- 
ful eternity which is in reserve for the 
children of ungodliness. ; 

It is by the gospel of Jesus Christ, and 
by it alone, that this check on the morai 
sensibilities of our heart towards God is 
removed. It assures safety and peace tv 
the sinner; and he, looking to the atone- 
ment of the cross, can at once rejoice in 
the fulness of the divine mercy, and do 
profoundest reverence to the unabated 
dignity of the Sovereign. The grace 
and the greatness of the Divinity are 
alike open to his view; and whereas be- 
fore, the terrors of a guilty selfishness 
had within him their sole occupation, res- 
cued from these, he can now look calmly 
and intelligently on; and it is when so 
employed, that the susceptibilities of his 
moral nature are awakened to one and 
ail of the perfections of the Godhead. 
Itis when he thus looks unto God, that 
he becomes like unto God—even by the 
moral radiance of Him who is adored, 
now calling back a kindred reflection 
from the serene and steadfast counte- 
nance of him who is the adorer. It is 
thus that that assimilating process which 
shall be perfected in Heaven, where we 
shall be altogether like unto God, for 
there we shall see Him as He is, has its 
commencement and its progress upon 
earth—for even now, beholding as with 
open face the glory of the Lord, we are 
changed into the same image from glory 
to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord. 

Let us now conclude this part of our 
argument with two practical reflections. 

First, we doubt that there may be some 
here present, who are alike strangers 
both to the one fear and the other——as 
little struck by the terror of God’s wrath, 
as they are solemnized into reverence by 
the worth and the moral excellence which 
belong to Him. This we hold to be the 
general habit of men in the world. They 
stand in no need of a gospel to soothe 
them, and just because the law never 
scared them. They are listless, in truth, 
and most profoundly asleep to both terms 
of this big alternative; and, if not am- 


NUL] 


mated into hope by any sense of reality 
in the offers of mercy, neither can they 
sink into despondency by any sense of 
reality in the coming vengeance. The 
present existence is their ali; and as to 
its issues in a yet unknown and untravel- 
led scene, they think not at all and they 
care not at all. The Bible declaration 
that by nature they are the children of 
wrath, does not move them. ‘The testi- 
mony of their own conscience that they 
are living without God in the world, does 
not awaken them. The daily remem- 
-brancers which meet them on their way, 
and speak to them with a force of ani- 
mation which there is no,evading, of the 
death that is so sect td so speedily 
~ awaiting them, carry not forward their 
thoughts to the judgment that is also 
awaiting them. Meanwhile time runs 
on with unaltered footsteps; and the cy- 
cles of Heaven, as they roll over-head, 
witness the follies and the heedlessness of 


each successive day, to be as inveterate as | 


of the day that went before it; and not 
more steadfastly than these perform their 
wonted revolutions in the firmament 
above, does many a poor child of infatua- 


tion below persist in the courses of a deep | 


and determined worldliness. Ard so 
with thousands and thousands more, there 
is never so much as one fearful anticipa- 
tion in time, of that which has its dread 
fulfilment in eternity. For God is not 
to be mocked. The unchanging princi- 
ples of His moral administration are not 
to be tampered with. The sanctions of 
His outraged law are not to be nullified, 
but must have their emphatic vindication 
—for sooner shall nature expire than the 


high jurisprudence of God shall be 


trampled on—Heaven and Earth shall 
pass away but not one jot or one tittle of 
‘His law shall fail. 

Secondly—Let us hope that there are 
some here present, who have known 
what it was to be practically in earnest 
because of these things ; and who feeling 
a significancy both in the threats of that 


law which they have violated, and in the | 


FEAR OF TERROR AND FEAR OF REVERENCE. 





173 


invitations of that gospel which has held 
out to them a sanctuary and a hiding- 
place from the storm, have there cast the 
anchor of their hope, and now rejoice 
that they are safe. Theirs is in no way 
the joy of those who feel that they can 
sin with impunity. It is true that they 
count upon forgiveness, but net forgive: 
ness in such a way as marks the indif: 
ference of the Godhead to sin, but for- 
giveness in such a way as manifests His 
entire and unbroken sacredness. In that 
atonement by which the vengeance of a 
broken law has been averted from them- 
selves, they still behold the demonstration 
of God’s antipathy to evil; and if not ac- 
tuated as heretofore by the terror ys 
power, still they are actuated by the Geep- 
est reverence for the perfections of His 
moral nature. ‘They are not exempted 
from service under the economy of the 
gospel. Only it is service, not in the old- 
ness of the letter, but in the newness of 
the spirit. Still it is service; and it 
should be no longer a mystery, that they, 
who, in one sense of the term are called 
upon to serve God without fear, are, in 
another sense of it, called upon to perfect 
their holiness in the fear of the Lord. 
You will perceive by this, how much 
more pure and generous and noble, the 
evangelical is than the legal virtue—the 
one in fact being rendered, in truckling 
exchange for the remuneration which it 
aims after ; the other, already in posses- 
sion of that ample remuneration which 
has been won by the Mediator for all who 
believe, rendered as a spontaneous offer- 
ing of love and of loyalty. It is thus 
that faith, of all principles the most ma- 
ligned and misunderstood by the world, 
not only pacifies the conscience of the 


| sinner, but purifies all the springs of his 


obedience—so that, instead of a drivel- 
ling servility towards the Master of 
whom he is in dread, it is the willing 
homage of his duteous and delighted 
subordination towards the Father whom 
he hold: in utmost reverence. 


174 


IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. 


[sERM 


SERMON XXIV. 


Immortality brought to light by the Gospel. 


Who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light by the gospel.” —2 Tim. i. 16. 


Tue men of the earth carry on their 
designs and their doings, just as if on 
earth they were to live for ever. Each 
is so intent upon his own earthly object 
every mind is so occupied with its 
own earthly scheme—every countenance 
spegggs such deep and eager anxiety after 
some favourite yet earthly ambition— 
each individual is so decidedly embarked, 
with all his powers of attention and per- 
severance, on some earthly undertaking 
—That surely one might think, it can 
be nought of a trifling or temporary na- 
ture, which either creates or keeps up so 
mighty a stir among our species. And 
yet it 1s not the less true, that all the busy 
activities of all these people have their 
upshot in forgetfulness. It is not the 
greatness or the durability of the objects, 
which has called forth the effort and the 
strenuousness of men. It is the folly of 
men, which urges them to the pursuit of 
paltry and evanescent objects—a folly 
which overlooks the arithmetic of our 
few little years, and has invested time 
with the characters of eternity—a folly 
which all the demonstrations of experi- 
ence have been unable to rectify; and 
which, after the mighty sweep of count- 
less generations from the face of our 
world, reigns with unabated strength 
over the human heart, and finds the men 
of the present day as unwise and as in- 
fatuated as ever. 

Death is a theme of mighty import; 
and every variety of eloquence has been 
exhausted, upon the magnitude of its 
desolations. ‘There is not a place where 
human beings congregate together, that 
does not, in the fleeting history of its in- 
mates, give forth the lesson of their 
mortality. Is itahouse? Death enters 
unceremoniously there, and with rude 
hand tears asunder the dearest of our 
sympathies. Is itatown? Every year 
death breaks up its families ; and the so- 
ciety of our early days is fast melting 





away from us. Is it a market place? 
Death works among the people at short 
and rapid intervals; and though at the 
end of twenty years, I see a crowd as 
busy and as numerous as before—these 
are new facesgvhich meet my eye, and 
new names which fall upon my ear. Is 
ita church? The aspect of the congre- 
gation is changing perpetually ; and in 
a little time another people will enter 


these walls, and another minister will 


speak to them. Is it the country at 
large? On every side we see a shifting 
population—another set of occupiers to 
the farms, and other names or other men 
annexed to the properties. 

But this is viewing the subject at a 
distance. Every assemblage of objects 
is composed of individuals; and think 
of the numbers that must have suffered, 
to accomplish the changes which we 
have now set before you. Think that 
each of these individuals carried in his 
bosom a living principle, and that that 
principle is now to all appearance extin- 
guished—that each felt as warm and as 
alive to the world as perhaps any who 
now hears me, and that this world the 
stern severity of death forced him to 
abandon for ever—that each was as feel- 
ingly open to pain and to terror, and 
that the forebodings and the reluctance 
and the agonies of death came upon all 
of them—that each had hopes and plans 
and wishes to accomplish, but that death 
carried him away; and they are all 
buried in forgetfulness along with him. 

All is vanity, says the preacher ; and 
it is death which stamps this character 
on the affairs of the world. It throws a 
mockery on all that is human. It frus- 
trates the wisest plans, and absolutely 
converts them into nothingness. All the 
ecstacies of pleasure, all the splendours 
of fame, all the triumphs of ambition, 
all the joys of domestic tenderness, all 
the eye can look for or the heart aspire 


after—this, this is their affecting termi- 
nation. Death absorbs all—it annihi- 
lates all. Our fathers who strutted their 
little hour on this very theatre, were as 
active and as noisy as we. The loud 
laugh of festivity was heard in their 
dwellings; and in the busy occupation 
of their callings, they had their days of 
labour, and their nights of thoughtful 
anxiety. The world carried on it then 
the same face of activity as now; and 
where are the men who kept it up in 
their allotted generation? They are 
where we shall soon follow them. They 
have gone to sleep ; but it is the sleep of 
death. ‘Their bed is a coffin in which 
they are mouldering. The garment 
which they have thrown aside is their 
body, which served them through life ; 
but is now lying in loose and scattered 
fragnients, among the earth of their 
grave. 

And it does aggravate our hopeless- 
ness of escape from death, when we look 
to the wide extent and universality of its 
ravages. Wesee no exception. It scat- 
ters its desolations with unsparing cruelty 
among all the sons and daughters of 
Adam. It perhaps adds to our despair, 
when we see it extending to the other 
animals, Every thing that has life dies ; 
and even the lovely forms of the vegeta- 
ble creation dissolve into nothing. It 
appears to be the condition of every or- 
ganic being ; and so looks as if it were 
some tremendous necessity, under which 
we have nothing for it but helplessly to 
acquiesce. It carries to our observation 
all the immutability of a general law. 
Man can look for no mitigation to 
the big and incurable distress. He can- 
not reverse the processes of Nature, 
nor bid her mighty elements obey him. 

Is there no power then superior to 
Nature, and which can control her? To 
us a law of the universe carries the idea 
of some fixed and inalienable necessity 
alone with it; and none more certain, 
more unvarying and more widely ex- 
tended in its operation, than the law of 
death. In the wide circuit of things, 
does there exist no high authority which 
can abolish this law ?—no power which 
can overthrow death, and spoil him of 
his principality ?—no being travelling in 
the greatness of his strenoth, who can 


IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSEEL. 





his tyranny to pieces ? 


175 


We never saw 
that Being. But the records of past 
ages have come down to us; and we 
there read of an extraordinary visitor 
who lighted on these realms, where death 
has reigned so long in all the triumphs 
of undivided empire. Wonderful enter- 
prise, He came to destroy death. Vast 
undertaking, He came to depose Nature 
from her conceived immutability. He 
came to shift her processes—and a law 
that embraced in its wide grasp all which 
lives and moves on the face of the world, 
he came to overturn it. And He soon 
gave tokens of a power commensurate to 
the mighty undertaking. ‘That Nature, 
to whose operations we are So apt #6 as- 
cribe some stubborn and invincible ne- 
cessity, gave way at His coming. She 
felt His authority through all her ele- 
ments, and she obeyed it. Wonderful 
period, when the constancy of Nature 
was broke in upon by Him who estab- 
lished it—when the Deity vindicated His 
honours; and the miracles of a single 
age, committed to authentic history, gave 
evidence to all futurity that there is 
a Power above Nature and beyond it. 
What more unchanging than the aspect 
of the starry Heavens; in what quarter 
of her domimions does Nature maintain 
a more silent and solemn inflexibility, 
than in the orbs which roll around us ? 
Yet at the coming of the mighty Saviour, 
these Heavens broke silence. Music 
was heard from their canopy, and it came 
from a concord of living voices, which 
sung the praises of God, and made them 
fall in articulate language upon human 
ears. After this, who can call Nature un- 
alterable 2 Jesus Christ while he tarried 
on earth made perpetual invasions upon 
her constancy; and she never in a sin- 
gle instance, resisted the word of His 
power. What manner of man is this, 
said his disciples, who can make the 
wind and the seas obey him? Philoso- 
phers love to expatiate ; and they tell us 
of the laws of the animal and the vege- 
table kingdom. These laws may prove 
an impassable barrier to us, but in the 
hand of the omnipotent Saviour they 
were nothing. He reversed or sus- 
pended them at pleasure. He blasted 
the fig tree by a single word ; and, what 
to us was the dawn of some high antici 


“grapple this mighty monarch and break | pation, He made man the subject of His 


176 


miracles. He restored sight to the blind. 
He restored speech to the dumb. He 
restored motion to the palsied. And to 
crown His triumph over Nature and her 
processes, He restored life to the dead. 
He laid down His own life, and He took 
itup again. The disciples gave up all 
for lost, when they saw the champion of 
their hopes made the victim of that very 
mortality, which He promised to destroy. 
It was like the revenge and the victory 
of Nature, over Him who had so often 
prevailed against her. But it was only 
to make His triumph more illustrious. 
He died and was buried; but He 
rose again. He re-entered that myste- 
rious, bourne, from which it has been 
said that no traveller ever returns; but 
He did. He burst asunder the mighty 
barriers of the grave. He re-entered 
and reanimated that body which expired 
on the cross ; and by that most oe 
of all testimonies, His own unaltered 
form emerging from the tomb, He has 
given us to know, that He fought against 
the law of death and He carried it. 

But man not only wants power to 
achieve his own immortality, He also 
wants light to discover it. If such, in 
spite of every appalling exhibition to the 
contrary, is really to be the ultimate state 
of man, this doctrine is not brought to 
light by reason. ‘The text indeed says 
as much, in saying that it is brought to 
light by the gospel. It represents this 
great truth as dark by Nature; and only 
made clear by Revelation. It seems to 
cast discredit on all the arguments of 
science in behalf of a future state; and, 
just for want of a sufficient basis in the 
evidence of Philosophy on which to rear 
this noble anticipation, it would rest and 
establish it chiefly on the evidence of faith. 


In the further prosecution of this dis- 
course, let us first advert to what may be 
called the physical state, and then to the 
moral state of the mind; and under each 
head, let us endeavour to contrast the in- 
sufficiency of the light of nature, with the 
sufficiency and fulness of the light of the 
gospel. 


I. An argument for its immortality has 
‘been drawn from the consideration of 
what we should term the physics of the 
mind—that is, from the consideration of 


IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. 


[SERM, 


its properties, when it is regarded as hav- 
ing a separate or substantive being of its 
own. For example it has been said that 
spirit is not matter, and therefore must be 
imperishable. We confess that we see 
not the force of this reasoning. We are 
not sure by nature of the premises ; and 
neither do we apprehend how the conclu- 
sion flows from it. We think ourselves 
familiar with the subtleties and the scho- 
lastics that have been uttered upon the 
subject. To us they are far from satis- 
factory ; nor can we perceive aught of 
that evidence, on which we rest our 
belief in any coming event or coming 
state of the futurity which lies before us 
—we can perceive no such force of prac- 
tical evidence in those abstract or meta- 
physic generalities, which are employed 
to demonstrate the endurance or rather 
the indestructibleness of the thinking 
principle—so as to be persuaded, that it 
shall indeed survive the dissolution of the 
body, and shall separately maintain its 
consciousness and its powers on the other 
side of the grave. 

Now, in the recorded fact of our Sa- 
viour’s resurrection, we see what many 
would call a more popular; but what we 
should deem a far more substantial and 
satisfactory argument for the soul’s immor- 
tality, than any that is furnished by the 
speculation which we have now alluded 
to. To us the one appears as much 
superior to the other, as History is more 
solid than Hypothesis, or as Experience 
is of a texture more firm than Imagina- 
tion, or as the Philosophy of our modern 
Bacon, is of a surer and sounder charac- 
ter than the Philosophy of the old school- 
men. Now it is upon the fact of His 
own resurrection that Christ rests the 
hope and the promise of resurrection 
to all of us. If He be not risen from the 
dead, says one of His apostles, we are of 
all men the most miserable. — It is to this 
fact, that he appeals as the foundation and 
the hope of immortality. To every cavil 
and to every difficulty he opposes the 
emphatic argument, that Christ has risen. 
This was Paul’s argument; and it has 
descended by. inheritance to us. We 
have received the testimony. We have 
access to the documents. We can take 
a view of the unexampled evidence, 
which has been carried down to us upon 
the vehicles of history ; and in opposition 





XXIV.] 
to all which fancy or speculation can 
muster against us, we can appeal to the 
fact. It is not a doctrine excogitated by 
the ingenuities of human reasoning. It 
is a doctrine submitted to the observa- 
tion of the human senses. It is not 
an untried experiment. While Jesus 
Christ lived, He made it repeatedly, and 
with unvaried success, upon others ; and, 
in giving up His body to the cross, He 
made it upon Himself. One who could 
carry an experiment such as this to a 
successful termination, has a claim to be 
listened to; and He tells by the mouth of 
an apostle, that the fact of Himself hav- 
ing risen, bears most decisively upon the 
doctrine that we shall rise also. “ For 
if we believe that Jesus died and rose 
again, even so them also which sleep in 
Jesus will God bring with him.” 

Let it be remarked, before we conclude 
chis head of discourse, that the word which 
we render “abolished,” signifies also, 

“made of no effect.” The latter inter- 
pretation of the word is certainly more 
applicable to our first or our temporal 
death. He has not abolished temporal 
death. It still reigns with unmitigated 
violence, and sweeps off its successive 
_ generations with as great sureness and 
rapidity asever. This part of the sen- 
tence is not abolished, but it is rendered 
ineffectual. Death still lays us in the 
grave; but it cannot chain us there 
to everlasting forgetfulness. It puts its 
cold hand upon every one of us; buta 
power mightier than death will lift it off, 
and these frames be again reanimated 
with all the warmth of life and of senti- 
ment. ‘Phe church-yard has been called 
the land of silence ; and silent it is indeed 
to those who occupy it. ‘The Sabbath 
- bell is no longer heard; nor yet the tread 
of the living population above them. 
But though removed from the hearing 
of every earthly sound, yet shall they 
hear the sound of the last trumpet. It 
shall enter the loneliness of their dwel- 
lings, and be heard through Death’s 
remotest caverns. When we open the 
sepulchres of the men of other times, the 
fragments of skeletons and the moulder- 
‘ing of bones form indeed a humiliating 
spectacle. But the working of the same 
power which raised Jesus from the dead, 
shall raise corruption to a comelier form, 
and invest it in all the bloom and vigour 

23 


IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. 


177 


of immortality. So is the resurrection 
of the dead. It is sown in corruption. 
It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in 
dishonour. It is raised in glory. It is 
sown in weakness. It is raised in power. 
It is sown a natural body. It is raised a 
spiritual body. ‘This corruptible must 
put on incorruption; and this mortal 
must put on immortality. So when this 
corruption shall have put on incorruption, 
and this mortal shall have put on immor 
tality, then shall be brought to pass the 
saying that is written, Death is swallowed 
up In victory. 


II. But another argument for the im- 
mortality of man, has been drawn by 
philosophers from the moral state of his 
mind; and more especially from that 
progressive expansion, which they affirm 
it to have undergone, in respect of its 
virtues as well as of its powers. Still we 
fear, that, in respect of this argument too, 
the flowery description of the moralists 
has no proof, and more particularly no 
experience to support it. There is a 
beauty we do confess in many of their 
representations ; but beauty is only for 
them who sit at ease. It is a cruel 
mockery to the man who is surrounded 
by the agonies of a death-bed ; and has 
in his immediate view, the dread images 
of annihilation or vengeance. Yes! we 
have heard them talk, and with eloquence 
too, of the good man and of his prospects 
—of his progress in life being a splendid 
career of virtue, and of his death being a 
gentle transition to another and a better 
world—of its being the goal where he 
reaps the honourable reward that is due 
to his accomplishments, or being little 
more than a step in his proud march to 
eternity. ‘his is all very fine, but it 
is the fineness of poetry. Where is the 
evidence of its bemg any better than 

'a deceitful imagination ? 

We might believe that there was some- 
thing real in this stately progression to 
eternity, if we saw it; but we see it not. 
Why so cruel an interruption to the pro- 
gress? What means this awful and 
mysterious death? Why is the good 
man not suffered-to carry on in his tri- 
umphant progress ; and how comes this 
dark and inexplicable event, to be inter- 
posed between him and the full accom- 

'plishment of his destiny? You may 


178 


IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. 


[SERM. 


choose to call it a step; but there is no! have no confidence in him, or in his 


virtue in a name to quell our suspicion. 
It bears in every circumstance all the 
marks of a termination. We see the 
gradual decay of those faculties, which 
you tell us, but tell us falsely, are ripen- 
ing and expanding. We see those vir- 
tues which you have represented as in a 
state of constant perseverance—we see 
them giving way to the power of disease 
—we see them withering into feebleness ; 
and, instead of that which confers grace 
or dignity on man, we see the peevish- 
ness, the discontent, the fretfulness of age. 
' We see the body bending to the dust. 
We see it extended in all the agony of 
helplessness and pain. To call this a 
triumphant procession to eternity—or to 
disguise those actual horrors which the 
ear hears and the eye witnesses, by the 
gildings of a flimsy imagination! We 
observe the emission of the last breath ; 
and, whether the spirit is extinguished or 
fled to another residence, Nature tells us 
not—but when the academic declaimer 
talks of his fancied career of perfection, 
we should lift the honest front of expe- 
rience against him, and call upon him to 
reveal to us the mystery of death. How 
comes an event so unseemly to meet the 
hero of immortality, on the path he was 
treading with such security and triumph? 
What the purpose of such an interrup- 
tion at all? Why has the being, whom 
they would proudly assimilate to angels, 
such an ordeal to undergo? Why like 
them does he not flourish in perpetual 
vigour? And how shall we explain that 
mighty change, with all its affecting ac- 
companiments of reluctance and agony 
and despair ? 

Death gives the lie to all the specula- 
tions of all the moralists; but it only 
gives evidence and consistency to the 
statements of the gospel. ‘The doctrines 
of the New Testament will bear to be 
confronted with the rough and vigorous 
lessons of experience. ‘They attempt no 
ornament and no palliation. ‘They give 
the truth in all its severity—nor do they 
attempt to strew flowers around the se- 
pulchre, or pour a deceitful perfume into 
the rottenness of the grave. Were a 
physician to take up my case, and speak 
lightly of my ailments, while I knew 
that a consuming disease was working 
and making progress within me, [ should 


a eBanking ipa ch le enigma et neat cer te ea tite err nia nec nnnanacr agian: 


! 
’ 


remedies. I should like him to see the 
mischief in its full extent, that the medi- 
cine applied may be such as to meet and 
to combat with it. Now Christ the Phy- 
sician of souls has taken up their disease 
in all its malignity. There is no soften- 
ing, no disguise, in the representation of 
His messengers. Their account of death 
accords with our experience of it. What 
they tell us of death, is what we feel it to 
be—not that thing of triumph, which out 
of Christianity and beyond the circle of 
its influence it never is; but a thing of 
distress, and horror, and unnatural vios 
lence. He who is weak enough to be 
carried along by the false and the flimsy ~ 
eloquence of sentimental moralists, might 
be led to believe that the man who dies 
is only sinking gently to repose, or wing- 
ing his way to a triumphant eternity. 
But the Bible tells us differently—that 
out of Christ there is no triumph and no 
gentleness about i. Ii talks of the sting, 
and of the pains, and of the fear of death; 
and what we feel and know of the shrink- 
ings of nature, proves that it has expe- 
rience on its side. And the book which 
characterizes so truly death in itself, is 
worthy at least of our attention, when it 
treats of death in its moral or spiritual 
bearings. 

Death then, as it appears to the eye of 
the senses, is but the extinction of that 
life which we now live in the world ; but 
death, as revealed to us in Scripture, is 
the effect and the sentence of sin. Sin is 
the root of the mischief; and it is a mis- 
chief which Scripture represents as 
stretching in malignity and duration, far 
beyond the ken of the senses. Had we 
no other guide than our senses, we might 
conceive death to be a mere annihilation ; 
and the utter destruction of their being, 
to be the whole amount of the calamity 
inflicted upon sinners. But distinct from 
this death of the body, there is what may 
be termed the death of the soul—not a 
death which consists in the extinction of 
its consciousness, for the conscience of 
guilt will keep by it for ever—not a death 
which implies the cessation of feeling, for 
to feeling it will continue to be all alive, 
though the feeling of intense suffering— 
not a death by which all sense of God 
will be expunged, for the sense of God’ 
offended countenance will abide by it and 


_ XXxiv.] 


agonize it through all eternity. He who 
undergoes this second, this spiritual death, 
does not thereby cease to have life; but 
he ceases to have that favor of God which 
is better than life. He lives it is true, but 
it is the life of an exile from hope and 
from happiness. He lives, but it is ina 
state of hopeless distance from the foun- 
tain of living water. God is at enmity 
towards him; and in his own heart there 
is enmity towards God. This at least is 
the death of enjoyment. It is the death 
of all those pleasures, and of all those 
perceptions, which belong to a right moral 
state of existence. In this sense truly the 
soul is dead, though alive and most pun- 
gently alive to the corrosions of that worm 
which dieth not. In this sense there has 
been a quenching of its life, though all 
awake to the pain and the anguish of the 
fire that is not quenched. ‘The temporal 
death is only the portal to sorer calami- 
ties. All who sin shall die; but this is 
not the conclusion of the sentence. All 
who die in sin shall live in torment. 
Now it promises well for our Sa- 
viour’s treatment of this sore malady— 
that He hath as it were placed Himself 
at the source of the mischief, and there 
made head against it. He has combated 
the radical force and virulence of the 
disease. He has probed it to the bottom. 
He has grappled with sin in its origin 
and its principle. He has taken it away 
—for by the sacrifice of Himself on the 
accursed tree, He has expiated its guilt ; 
and, by the operation of the Spirit in the 
heart of the believer, He is rooting out 
its existence. Had He only put together 
the fragments of my body, and recalled 
my soul to its former tenement—He 
would have done nothing. Sin, both in 
its power and in its condemnation, would 
have claimed me as its own—and, in 
dreary banishment from God, it would 
have recalled me to life, but a life of 
misery ; and stamped on me immortali- 
ty, but an immortality of despair. But 
the Author of the gospel has swept off 
the whole burden of the calamity. He 
has made a decisive thrust into the very 
heart and principle of the disease. He 
has destroyed sin, for He has both can- 
celled the sentence and washed away 
the pollution ; and, by the accomplish- 
ment of a mystery which angels desire 
to look into, He brings sinners unto 


IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. 


174 


God, where they shall ever rejoice in the 
purest light and he happiest immor- 
tality. 

To estimate aright the new moral ex- 
istence into which Christ ushers every 
sinner who receives Him,—we_ have 
only to reflect how it is that every sinner, 
apart from Christ, stands towards God. 
He is either immersed in deep oblivion 
and unconcern, and so may well be ac- 
counted dead to the Being who made 
and who upholds him; or if his con- 
science be at all awake to a true sense of 
his delinquencies from the law, he must 
view the lawgiver with a feeling of 
dread and discomfort and _ jealousy. 
There is a wide «:'ph of alienation be- 
tween him and his Maker; and the habi- 
tual the haunting apprehension of God’s 
displeasure towards him, engenders in 
him back again a habitual dislike towards 
God. There is no community of affec- 
tion or confidence betwixt them; and 
pursued as he is by a conviction of guilt, 
which he cannot resist and cannot escape 
from, he imagines a scowl on the aspect 
of the Divinity—an awful barrier of 
separation, by which he is hopelessly 
and irrecoverably exiled from the sacred 
throne of the Eternal. His spirit is not 
at ease. It is glad to find relief, in the 
day-dreams of a passing world, from 
those solemn realities, the thought of 
which so agitates and disquiets it. It 
seeks an opiate in the things of sense 
and time, against the disturbance which 
it finds in the things of eternity ; and so, 
cradled. in profoundest lethargy, it, 
while alive unto the world, is dead unto 
God. 

We cannot imagine a greater revolu- 
tion in the heart, than that which would 
ensue on the burden of this distrust o1 
of this apathy being done away—when, 
instead of viewing God with terror, or 
shrinking from the thought of Him, the 
sinner would steadfastly gaze upon His 
reconciled countenance, and be assured 
of the complacency and the good-will 
that were graven thereupon. Now a 
simple faith in the glad tidings of the 
gospel is competent to achieve this. lt 
would loosen the spirit’s bondage, by 
merely transforming the aspect of the 
Divinity from that of an enemy to that 
of afriend. It would change our indif- 
ference or our hatred into love ; and this 


1&0 


IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. 


ofection, from the central the presiding 


place which it occupies, would subordi- 
nate the whole man, and so_ utterly 
change his moral system as to make a 
new creature of him. ‘The faith of the 
gospel is something more than the germ 
of a new hope. It is the germ of a new 
heart, and so of a new character. The 
believer’s taste and sensibilities are now 
awake to objects, to which before he was 
utterly dead; or from which he wont to 
recoil with strong and sensitive aversion. 
In other words, he has become alive to 
these objects. He expatiates on another 
theatre of contemplation ; and he rejoices 
in other scenes and other prospects than 
before. He has lost his relish for that 
in which he formerly delighted. He 
delights in that for which formerly he 
had no relish. It is just as if old senses 
had been extinguished, and as if new 
ones had been substituted in their place. 
If he is not ushered into life for the first 
time he is at least usnered into a new 
mode of life for the first time: He un- 
dergoes preferment from the animal to the 
spiritual life; and this life, with the im- 
mortality annexed to it, is not only made 
clear by the cospel—but faith in the 
gospel may be said to have created it. 
Now all this is the doing of the Sa- 
viour. I cannot trust the physician who 
slays upon the surface of my disease, 
and throws over it the discuise of false 
colouring. I have more confidence to 
put in him, who, like Christ the Physi- 
cian of my soul, has looked the malady 
fairly in the face,—has taken it up in all 
its extent, and in all its soreness—has 
resolved it into its original principles— 
has probed it to the very bottom; and 
has set himself forward to combat with 
the radical elements of the disease. T'his 
is what the Saviour has done with death. 
He has plucked it of its sting. He has 
taken a full survey of the corruption, 
and met it in every one quarter where 
its malignity operates. It was sin which 
constituted the virulence in the disease, 
and he hath extracted it. He hath put 
it away. He hath expiated the sen- 
tence ; and the believer, rejoicing in the 
assurance that all is clear with God, 
serves Him without fear in righteous. 
ness and in holiness all the days of his 
life. The sentence is no longer in force, 
against us who believe. The Saviour 


[SERM. 


took the sentence upon Himself. He 
bore our iniquity. He became sin for 
us, though He knew no sin, that we 
might become the righteousness of God 


in Fling: The sentence is no longer in © 
force against us. ‘The Saviour has can- 
celled it: and he has done more than 


this. He has not only cancelled the guilt 
of sin, he has extinguished its power. He 
reigns in the heart of the believer. He 
sweeps it of all its corruptions. He takes 
jit such as it is—He makes it such as it 
should be. He brings the whole man 
under a thorough process of sanctifica- 
tion—so that while he lives he adds one 
degree of grace unto another—when he 
dies he rejoices in hope of the coming 
glory—when he stands at the bar of 
judgment, he is presented holy and un- 
reprovable in the sight of “aod and ot 
His Saviour. /!n the wnole of this treat- 
ment, I see the skill and intelligence and 
superior management of a physician who 
is up to the disease ; and knows where 
the main force of its malignity lies—who 
has a thorough insight into the princip.e 
of the mischief, and has reached forward 
an appropriate remedy to confront it— 
who, to abolish death, has directed the 
strength of His attack against sin which 
is its origin—who has averted the con- 
demnation of sin, by an expiatory sacri- 
fice—and who is destroying its power 
and its existence, by the operation of that 
mighty spirit, whereby He can break 
down the corruption of the human heart 
and subdue it unto all righteousness. 
Believe this done; and the veil is 
thrown aside which separates you from 
the glories of heaven—the way lies clear 
and open before you; and light, pure and 
satisfying light, gives the highest evi- 
dence and splendour to the great doctrine 
of life and immortality. The grand 
mystery is resolved. ‘The barrier which 
kept the sinner at a distance from God is 
levelled and put away. That barrier 
was sin ; and Christ, by the mighty in- 
struments of His sacrifice and His spirit, 
has Kverihtoud it. But a victory over 
sin is a victory over death. Where sin 
hath no longer any dominion, death hath 
no longer any claim; and that mighty 
Being “who spoiled ' principalities and 
powers hath abolished death, because He 
conquered sin. ‘True, it still reigns in 
these mortal bodies; and till the new 


system of things be established, it will 
scatter its desolation over the surface of 
the world. But the new system is pre- 
paring. A place is fitting up in Heaven, 
for those to whom our Saviour hath 
given the assurance, that, in His Father’s 
house there are many mansions ; and on 
earth, the Spirit 1s now working in the 
hearts of the destined occupiers, and 
making them meet for the inheritance. 
These vile bodies must be put off; and 
others put on, over which death shall 
have no power. ‘They will persist in 
bloom and in vigour to eternity. Mighty 
change in the constitution of the species 
—mighty change in the material system 
around us—mighty change in the souls 
of men, as well as in the bodies which 
they animate. ‘I'he bodies we now wear 
shall moulder into dust—the earth we 
now tread upon shall be burnt up—the 
heavens we now gaze at shall pass away 
as a scroll—But we look for new heavens 
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth rrght- 
eousness; and the beings who live in it 
shall never die. 

Before we conclude, let us refer your 
attention to the grand agent in this won- 
derful restoration of a fallen world. The 
work is His, and it is His orily. We 
must take Him not as a fellow-helper in 
the cause, but as the Captain of our sal- 
vation. It was He who trode the wine- 
press alone. His was all the contest, and 
to Him be all the triumph. Let no man 


offer to usurp or to share it with Him. | 
To Him belongs the work of our re-| 
demption, in all its extent and in all its | 
It was His sacrifice which | 


particulars. 
redeemed us from the punishment of sin ; 
and it is His spirit which redeems us 
from its pollution. And we contend that 
man is not in the right attitude for re- 
ceiving the mighty benefit, till he has 
cast down all his lofty imaginations, and 


resigned himself with gratitude and qui- | 


etness into the Saviour’s hands. ‘“ Here 
I am under the twofold misery, of having 
been a sinner in time past, and being a 
sinner still—of having incurred a sen- 
tence which I cannot expiate, and of per- 
‘severing in a path of destruction which I 
cannot turn from. The case in all its 
helplessness, and in all its difficulties, I 
make over wholly tothe Saviour. I may 
as well try to level yonder mountain, as 
try to master it by my own independent 


IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. 





18, 


excrtions. I obey the invitation of the 
Saviour—‘ Come unto me’—I put the 
case into His hand; and, if I do it inthe 
assured hope that His redemption will 
provide for it, [shall not be disappointed. 
If I offer Him the case, He will not re- 
fuse to take it up. ‘Him that cometh 
unto me, I will in no wise cast out.’ He 
takes up the case which I have submitted 
to Him. He examines it in its two lead- 
ing particulars. I cannot expiate the sen- 
tence; but the blood of His atonement 
can do it for me. Icannotturn from the 
paths of sin; but He can turn me by His 
grace—He can reign in me by His spirit 
—so that though without Him I can do 
nothing—yet with Him for my strength- 
ener and my friend I can do all things.” 
This then is the finished work, the com- 
plete salvation of Jesus Christ. “ Who- 
soever believeth in Him hath everlasting 
life.” Believe, and you will come forth 
with alacrity at His call. From the con- 
templation of your own nothingness, you 
will cast yourself upon the Saviour and 
upon His sufficiency. You will make 
an entire and unconditional surrender of 
yourselves to Him ; and be assured, that, 
from the first moment of your doing so, 
there will emerge the new hope of the 
redeemed, and the new life of the sancti- 
fied disciple. 

And you Christians, who have sat at 
His table—who have eaten of that bread 
which is the symbol of His body, and 
drunk of that wine which is the symbol 
of His blood—be assured, that, if you 
have done so, with all the spirituality of 
a firm and believing dependence on Him 
as your Saviour, upon you shall the 
whole of this great redemption be ac- 
complished. You have brought your 
bodies into contact with the elements of 
the ordinance; and if you have brought 
your minds into contact with the things 
represented by these elements, we can 


state to you in decisive language what 


will be the fruit of such fellowship. God 
is not unfaithful who hath called yon 
unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus 
Christ our Lord; and we can assert, 
upon the fidelity of God, upon the unfail- 
ing promises of Heaven, upon the 
strength of a high and unchangeable at- 
tribute, upon that truth of the Deity 
which is printed on all His works, and 
shines through all His revelations—In a 


182 


word, we can assert upon the solemn as- 
 3everation, nay, upon the oath of the 
Divinity Himself, that all who believe in 
His Son shall have their fruit unto holi- 
ness, and the end everlasting life. 

Such is the hope of your calling. Hold 
it firm and fast even unto the end; and 
the bed of death will be to you a scene of | 
triumph—the last messenger will be 
a messenger of joy; and those bright 
images of peace and rapture and eleva- 
tion, which, out of Christ, are the mere 
fabrication of the fancy, will, in Christ, 
be found to have a reality and a fulfil- 
ment, which shall beay you up in the 
midst of your dying agonies, with a joy 
unspeakable and full of glory. It is no 
longer an idle declamation now. There 
is many a minister of Christ who could 
give you experience for it. He can take 
you to the house of mourning—to the 
mansion of pain and of sickness—to the 
chamber of the dying man. He can 
draw aside the curtain which covers the 


IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. 





last hours of the good man’s existence, 
and show you how a Christian can die. 


[SERM, 


He can ask you to bend your ear, and to 
catch the faltering accents of praise and 
of piety. What meaneth that joy m the 
midst of suffering —that hope in the midst 
of breathlessness and pain—that elevation 
in the midst of cruellest agonies? It is 
not his own merit which sustains him.— 
It is the merit of a benevolent Saviour. 


It 8 not a sense of his own righteousness 


which gives intrepidity to his expiring 
bosom. It is the righteousness of Christ. 
It is the hope of being found in Him, 
and a sense of the grace and forgiveness 
which he has received through His 
hands. In a word it is Christ who re- 
solves the mystery. It is His presence 
which throws tranquillity and joy around 
the scene of distress. It is He who ad- 
ministers vigour to the dying man; and, 
while despair sits on every countenance, 
and relatives are weeping around ‘him, 
He enables him to leave them all with 
this exulting testimony—O death where 
is thy sting—O grave where is thy 
victory ! | 





SERMON XXYV. 
The Brevity of Human Life. 


“ But this I say, brethren, the time is short.”—1 Cor. vii. 29. 


THe affirmation of the text may be 
tried by a most distinct arithmetic. The 
average of man’s life is numerically 
known. And should there be an over- 
weening confidence to carry our hopes 
beyond this average, the maximum of 
life is numerically known. And, to 
balance the uncertainty whether our days 
upon earth may not greatly exceed the 
average, there is an equal uncertainty 
whether they may not as greatly fall 
short of it. There is no point, from its 
origin downwards, in which death may 
not lay his arrest on the current of hu- 
man existence; and as if the whole 
domain of humanity were his own, does 
he go forth at large from one extreme to 
the other of it; nor is there a single por- 
tion of the territory, on which, with free 
and unfaltering footstep, he may not en- , 





ter. In the churchyard, we see graves 
of every dimension. This land of silence 
is far more densely peopled by young 
than by old—proving that through all 
the departments of life, whether of age, 
or of youth, or of infancy, the arrows of 
this mighty destroyer flee at random. 
Parents have oftener to weep over their 
children’s tomb, than children have to 
carry their parents to that place, where 
lies the mouldering heap of the genera- 
tions that have already gone by. So that 
on the side of our text, we have the clear- 
est lights both of arithmetic and of expe- 
rience ; and one would think it superflu- 
ous to hold any parley with the under- 
standing, on a topic of which the proof is 
SO overpowering. 

Why, it may be thought, should we 
be anxious in urging a truth, which may 


XXxv.] BREVITY OF 
safely be left to its own evidence? or 
take occasion strenuously and repeatedly 
to affirm, what none is able to deny ? 
And this is just the marvellous anomaly 
of our nature, which it is so difficult to 
explain. In the face of all this evidence, 
and in utter opposition to the judgment 
which is extorted thereby, there is an 
obstinate practical delusion, that resides 
most constantly within the hearts, and 
rules most imperiously over the habits 
of the vast majority of our species. It 
is not that we are incapable of all influ- 
ence from futurity; for it is the future 
gain of the present adventure, or the 
future issue of the present arrangement, 
or the future result of the present contri- 
vance, that sets about the whole of human 
activity agoing. But it is to the future 
death, and to the future condition on the 
other side of it, that we are so strangely 
insensible. We are all in the glow and 
bustle and eagerness of most intense ex- 
pectation, about the events that lie on the 
intermediate distance between us and 
death ; and as blind to the certainty of 
the death itself, as if this distance stretched 
indefinitely onward in the region of anti- 
cipation before us, or as if it were indeed 
un eternity. ‘There is a busy fitful and 
unsettled dream into which the world 
has been lulled as if by fascination ; and 
out of which neither the moan of fre- 
quent death-beds, nor the daily tolling 
of the funeral bell, nor the constant break- 
ing down of existing families, nor the 
piece-meal falling away of the old society, 
nor the building up of a new one in its 
place—we say that there is a deep sleep 
upon our world, out of which the whole 
noise and turmoil and terror of these in- 
cessant changes, have been totally unable 
to awaken us. 

Nor do we expect of a new utterance 
about the brevity of time, that it will 
awaken you. For this purpose, there 
must be the putting forth of a force that 
is supernatural; and the most experi- 
mental demonstration we know of this 
necessity, is the torpor of the human 
soul about death, and the tenacity where- 
with it stands its ground against the 
most pathetic and the most palpable ex- 
hibitions of it. We are never more 
assured of man, that he is wholly sold 
over to the captivity of this world, than 
on witnessing the strong adherence of 


HUMAN LIFE, — , 185 
his heart to it, under the most touching 
experiences of its vanity—than on per- 
ceiving how unmoved he is out of all his 
earthliness, whether he go from burials 
to business, or from business back again 
to burials—than on observing how, after 
having carried a neighbour to his grave, 
and there trod as it were on the confines 
of the world, he will turn him again 
with a devotedness as intense and as un- 
broken to its concerns and companies as 
before. We affirm, that of the spell 
which binds him to earth, no power 
within the compass of nature is able to 
disenchant him—that argument will not 
—and the inroads of mortality on his 
own dwelling-place will not—and ser- 
mons poured forth over the closing grave 
of the dearest of his family will not—and 
the evident approaches of the last mes- 
senger to his own person will not—And 
it is indeed a most affecting spectacle to 
behold, amid the warnings and the symp- 
toms of a dissolution which so speedily 
awaits him, that he just hugs more closely 
to his heart that world, which is on the 
eve of being torn away from his embraces 
for ever. Give me then a man who is 
actually alive to the realities of faith ; 
and the inference from all this is, that 
another power than that of the experience 
of nature over the feelings of nature, must 
have been put forth to quicken him. 
There is not within the compass of all 
that is visible, any cause competent to the 
working of such an effect upon the human 
spirit. ‘The power which awakens it to 
a sense of spiritual things, cometh from 
a spiritual quarter. ‘There is nought in 
the world that is present, which can 
bring a human soul under the dominion 
of the world that is to come. One would 
have thought, that the failures and the 
fluctuations of time might have shaken 
the heart of man out of its devotedness 
to time, and shifted its regards to eternity. 
But it would appear not. ‘The mere 
destruction of our earthly dependence, is 
not enough, to shift our desires and our 
dependence to that which is heavenly. 
The losses and the desolations which 
attach to the life of sense, and the cer- 
tainty of all its joys and interests being 
speedily and totally swept away—these 
it would appear, will not of themselves 
germinate within us the life of «aith 
The unmoved earthliness of the soul 


184 BREVITY OF 
amid all the pathos, and warning, and 
menace, and solemn instruction of those 
affecting changes, which our earth so 
convincingly exhibits—this, of itself, de- 
monstrates the need that there is, for the 
might and the mystery of a higher agent, 
to transform that which is carnal into 
that which is spiritual. In a word, the 
decay and the dissolution of all that is 
below, have no effect in raising the 
downward tendencies of the heart, which 
is only cradled thereby into more sunken 
infatuation, and strangely cleaves with 
nore tenacity to a scene, on which the 
characters of littleness, and frailty, and 


rapid evanescence stand so palpably en- | 


graven. This wondrous phenomenon 
of our nature, convinces us of the doc- 
trine of regeneration. It informs us that 


no treatment short of this, 1s able to spi-| 
ritualize us—that ere our affections can 
be set on the things which are above, an | 


influence from above must descend upon 
them; or ere we become alive to the 
unfading glories and the ethereal delights 
of the upper sanctuary, there must come 
down from that sanctuary, the light and 
the power of a special revelation. 

There is a real and a most momentous 


distinction, between the children of light, | 


and the children of this world ; and that 


is a distinction which ought to be fre- | 


quently adverted to, in our addresses to 
every mixed or general congregation. 


HUMAN LIFE. [SERM 
by the Spirit of God, which both they 
and we are bound to pray for, be the 
very instrument of awakening them. 


I. The first esson that we would urge 
from the shortness of our abode upon 
earth, is moderation in regard to all its 
enjoyments—moderation, whether of de- 
sire in the pursuit, or of) delight in 
the possession of them. ‘There is not a_ 
stronger :ndication of time being felt as 
substant.s ly our all, and of eternity be- 
ing but a shadowy dream in our imagin- 
ation, than the full set of our hearts upon 
the advancement of our condition in this 
world—so as to bedim all our prospects, 
and reduce to utter powerlessness all our 
efforts towards the advancement of our 
condition in the next world. The plau- 
sibility wherewith this undoubted habit 
of the soul is often palliated, is the duty 
that lies upon us all, of building up a 
provision for our family. But then they 
too are a family of immortals. They too © 
are travelling along a journey that is 
short, and towards a long and lasting 
habitation. And if the accumulation of 


_wealth for the expenses of their road, 


shuts out all care for the accumulation of 
that treasure, the purpose of which is to 
enrich and to beautify their residence for 
ever—still it resolves itself into that delu- 
sion, whereby the things of sense have 





There are those of you, it is to be hoped, 
who have been born of the Spirit, and so | 


made practically alive to the reality and 
the emphatic import of eternal things: 
And, there are those of you, it is to be 
feared, who have not been disturbed, or 
at least not yet awakened out of the deep 
slumbers of carnality ; and to whom, till 
they are so awakened, the shortness of 
human life will prove an argument, in 
every way as feeble and as fruitless, as 
any that can be drawn out of the maga- 
zines either of natural or revealed truth. 
Let us first, therefore, endeavour to urge 
on the former of these two classes, such 
Christian lessons as the text might lead 


us at present to administer; and then | 


let us endeavour to urge their conversion 


to Christianity, on the latter of these two 
classes, and that still too from the con- | 


sideration of our text, which, though 
without the Spirit of God, it will fall 
powerlessly on their consciences, may, 


been made to elbow the things of faith 


out of the system of human affairs.— 
Every man loves himself; and the pref- 
erence of time to eternity for himself, 
gives decisive token of an unbelief about 
eternity. And most men love their 
children ; and the preference of their 
time to their eternity, is just in every 
way as decisive of the same unbelief. 
The utter relaxation of all Christian 
guardianship through the week, is but 





wretchedly redeemed, by the tasks and 


_the formalities of a Sabbath evening; and, 
on the other hand, the busy and intent 
and ever-plying carefulness wherewith 


men will labour for the earthly good of 
their children, forms the most impressive 
rebuke that can be given, of the little they 
do and the listlessness they feel for their 
unperishable souls. And O did they but 
compute, both for themselves and for 
their little ones—how soon the high- 
blown enterprise, with all its train of 
‘Sanguine hopes, and dazzling anticipa- 


XXV.] 


tions, and rapidly succeeding centages, 
and the brilliant perspective, perhaps of a 
family raised to unbounded affluence, 
and admitted to all the privileges of free 
and fonourable conpanionship among 
the uyper circles of society—did they 
compute, as they would the returns of 
any worldly adventure, how very soon 
time with its ceaseless footstep will out- 
stride the whole speculation, and cast 
both them and their children’s children 
behind it among the ages that are forgot- 
ten—did they but think of the speed and 
the certainty of that coming day, when 
their bodies shall be food for the creeping 
things of the earth; and their souls, if 
neglected now, shall then be wandering 
in unprovided nakedness, through the 
dark realms of condemnation—did they 
but figure, as well they might, the look 
of despair, and the language of fell but 
fruitless execration, which ungodly fami- 
lies will then cast at the parents by 
whom their eternity has been undone— 
did they contemplate with adequate feel- 
ing, the anguish, and the helplessness, 
and the hatred, and the scowling re- 
proach, that should then sit on the coun- 
tenances of those, for whom now they 
toil so strenuously, and in the splendour 
of whose coming opulence they rejoice— 
O how would the deep and the dismal 
cloud that sits on their ulterior prospect, 
overshadow the nearer one. And even 
while they rode in triumph on the wings 
of this world’s prosperity, would they 
learn to mix trembling with their mirth, 
and to carry the burden of all their 
aggrandizement with most reverential 
and religious soberness. 


But on the other hand, and secondly, 
a dangerous adversity, as well as a dan- 
gerous success, may be the portion of 
many a family; and a boding cloud of 
disaster may hang and may discharge 
itself over their earthly habitation ; and 
as they look onward to the scene of their 
future history in the world, may they 
feel themselves standing on the margin 
of a dark and fearful unknown; and 
even though daily bread is made sure by 
the promises of God to all who trust in 
them—yet who can brook the humilia- 


BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 





185 


disarnointment, and the terrors of the im- 
pending poverty, have thus raised within 
it the conflict of many agitations. It is 
thus, that man manifests himself to be as 
much the creature of sense in the day of 
his misfortune, as in the day of his pros- 
perity. It proves how fully his affections 
are set upon the world, when, on gaining 
it, he rejoices as if he had gained all ; but 
it just proves his affections to be as fully 
and as exclusively set upon the world, 
when, on losing it, he abandons himself 
as utterly to despair as if he had lost all. 
With a spiritual man, to whose mind 
spiritual things come home, with the im 
pression of their reality—the considera- 
tion of our text would be effectual in both 
these cases ; and while by its first lesson 
it would reduce the extravagance of his 
joy, it would by a second lesson equally 
reduce the extravagance of his distress. 
It has been well said that the faith of im- 
mortality, gives a certain firmness of tex- 
ture to the soul. It places it on a high 
and a peaceful summit, which is beyond 
the reach of all earthly fluctuations. It 
brings within the ken of the mortal eye, 
such mighty spaces of bliss and glory in- 
terminable, as serve to expunge from the 
view of the beholder, that short interven- 
ing distance by which he is conducted to 
the margin of this vast territory. It is 
indeed a high exhibition which the disci- 
ple makes of his Christianity, when, sure 
of the present day because he knows that 
its subsistence is guaranteed, and sure of 
the coming immortality because he has 
laid his full reliance on the promises of 
the gospel—he can fearlessly commit the 
whole of that pilgrimage which lies be- 
tween these two extremes, to a faithful- 
ness that he knows to be unfailing— 
when, from the shore of present certainty, 
he can eye without dismay the brief but 
the stormy passage that lies on this side 
of death—when, athwart the dreary wil- 
derness, he can behold the day-star of im- 
mortality, and be cheered by the beams 
of light and love and purity that irradiate 
therefrom ; and, knowing that though 
the discipline for heaven be severe yet 
the time of that discipline is short, he can 
put up with all the pain and all the pov- 
erty which are allotted to his life im 


tion of a descent so woful; and what is! this world, and possess his soul in hope 
the charm that can tranquillize the heart | and in patience. 


into patience, when the shame, and the 
24 


And there are other and severer ills 


186 BREVITY OF 
than those of poverty, wherewith the 
spirit of a pilgrim may be sorely exer- 
cised. There may be the death of 
friends ; and, what perhaps is still more 
insupportable, there may be their deser- 
tion and their treachery. It is in the 
power of the arch-enemy of our race, to 
instil of his own spirit into the hearts of 
men—thus making it possible, even in 
the fair intercourse of society, to meet 
with deep and unfeeling cruelty under 
the guise of kindness ; and, in return for 
the unsuspecting confidence wherewith 
one pours out the sincerity of his friend- 
ship into another’s ear, to bring upon 
himself the unkindness and the wiles 
and the bitter derision of a cool and 
crafty deceiver. The great balsam for 
the wounded heart, under an infliction so 
painful, is the hope of immortality—in 
the believing sight of that distant heaven, 
where cunning and contrivance and 
brooding secrecy are unknown—where 
the leht of a pure and cloudless trans- 
parency, sits upon every character—and 
not one countenance that there opens 
upon you with benignity, which does not 
truly express the glow and the gracious- 
ness that are to be found in the inner- 
most recesses of the soul. This cheer- 
ing hope is the grand medicine of the 
heart, under the bitterness it may be 
doomed to experience ; but it does adda 
mellowing influence to the operation, 
when one thinks of the conflict of all 
its emotions that it will be soon over— 
that the triumphs of an infernal policy 
have but their little and their short-lived 
day, which will speedily be ended—that 
a retreat of peacefulness is at hand, in 
the bosom of which the oppressor and 
his victim will lie down in their graves 
together, where the wicked cease from 
troubling, where the weary are at rest. 


But this conducts us to the third 
Christian lesson, to which the consider- 
ation of our text might lend a very pow- 
erful reinforcement ; and that is a lesson 
of charity, even in the midst of deepest 
injuries and bitterest provocations. 


lignity and exasperation of this world, is 





HUMAN LIFE. [SERM. 
attitude of the two adversaries, and the ~ 
sullen distance at which they so im- 
movably stand, and the deep and ireful 
animosities which rankle within them, 
and the frenzied imaginations they have 
of their mutual deceit and mutual worth- 
lessness, with all the other symptoms of 
fierce and stout hostility, are often resolv- 
able—not unto the defect of truth or of 
friendship, but purely into a defect of ex- 
planation. Now this ought to have a soft- 
ening influence. But when even for this, 
the evidences whether of malice or dis- 
honesty, are too glaring to be resisted, 
there is something to temper and to mol- 
lify all our sensations of wrathfulness, 
in the thought of the coming disease and 
the coming deathbed. It were indeed a 
triumph, could the kindling resentments 
that now rage and burn within you, be 
quenched by the waters of compassion ; 
and for this purpose, think we beseech 
you, even of the greatest enemy you 
may have in this world—how soon the 
fatal distemper will seize upon him ; and 
the whole frame of his mortality will 
shake into dissolution ; and he will lie a 
stricken and irrecoverable patient in most 
affecting helplessness ; and he will send 
out a voice of feebleness that may im- 
plore, but has not strength to upbraid 
you; and after his lips have quivered 
and his eyes have rolled at the coming 
on of the last agony, he will sink away 
into deep and unbroken stillness. And 
O if you but saw the pale and peaceful 
repose, that sits on the dead man’s coun- 
tenance ; or, still more, if you could fol- 
low his unembodied spirit to that bar, 
where it stands naked and defenceless 
before the scrutiny of God; and behold 
how it trembles there under the piercing 
inspection of an eye, before which all 
deceit lies open and all decision must for 
ever melt away—tell us if this were pre- 
sent to your contemplation as it ought 
whether it would not curb the restless in- 
dignancy of your spirit, and whether you 
would not forget all his injustice and all 
his cruelties in time, when you thought 


A | of the horrors of his undone eternity ? 
great deal more than one half of the ma- | 


But let us rise from particular lessons 


due to the want of mutual understanding. | to one that is comprehensive of them all 
We often murmur, the one against the |—-from the separate graces which enter 


other, just because we misconceive one 


into the sanctification of a disciple, to the 


another. And the proud and stubborn’ work of sanctification at large—from the 


XXV.] | 


special virtues, that enter as so many dis- | 
tinct features of worth and loveliness in 
the Christian character, to the habit of 
general and most intent diligence in per- 
fecting that character in all its points; 
and thus standing complete in the whole 
will of God. There is a mighty work 
to be done; and few and evil are the 
days that are allotted for the doing of it. 


BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 


« 


187 


cation for that grace of God, which can 
alone work in us both to will and to do 
lof His good pleasure ; and an ever-ply- 
ing diligence in the cultivation of our 
personal character, that we may be found 
without spot and blemish in the day of 
Jesus Christ; and such a contest with 
nature, as that the spirit of the gospel 
/may prevail over it, and sin, though not 


The race of Christianity is a race go eradicated, as that we ait be free of 
against time—in which therefore there is i its hateful presence, may be so subdued 
not one minute to spare from its earnest- | as that we shall be free of its hateful ty 


ness and toilsome prosecution. We 
know that it is the righteousness of 
Christ, which hath purchased for us our 
title of entry into Heaven. But there is 
a righteousness which must adhere per- 
sonally to ourselves, that we may be 
qualified for heaven’s exercises and heav- 
en’s joys. He hath recovered for us 
our inheritance, and our birth-right ; and 
we must now enter upon our course of 
education, that we may become meet for 
the inheritance, and be qualified for do- 
ing honour to our birth-right, by the 
acquirement of all those graces and pro- 
prieties, which become the possession of 
it. It may be by an act of undeserved 
patronage, that a place of favour and 
emolument in the service of your earthly 
monarch is conferred upon you. But 
yet, after all, there must be a training for 
the place, and an examination of your 
personal fitness for its duties, ere you are 
inducted into it. A mansion of glory in 
. the upper paradise, is just such a place 
of favour and distinction, under the eye 
of your Monarch which is in heaven— 
given freely through Christ Jesus to all 
who will; but still a place for which 
you must ie trained, and on the success 
of which training you have to undergo 
a trial and an examination, and must 
have an approving sentence proclaimed, 
ere the door of heaven shal! be opened 
to you. 

On that day we shall be taken account 
of, not according to our dogmata but ac- 
cording to our doings ; and we shall not 
be admitted to any “part of the salvation 
that is through the blood of Christ, un- 
less it be found that we have a part in the 
salvation that is by the washing of re- 
generation, and by the renewing of the 
Holy Ghost. And to work out this sal- 
vation, there must on our part be a fear, 

and a trembling ; and an earnest suppli- 


ranny. And is this a work, we would 
ask, that is only to be taken up at random 
opportunities ; and abandoned to such 
'scraps of leisure and conv enience, as the 
busy history of a life spent in worldliness 
can afford; and put off indefinitely to 
those rare and occasional spaces, which 
may or may not cast up, when a respite 
from the manifold urgencies of the world 
meets and is at one with the caprice of 
our own inclinations. This may do with 
those who can recline themselves in the 
arms of their fancied orthodoxy, or it may 
do with those who think that the sobrie- 
ties of civil life are prepara ion enough 
for the sacredness of heaven. But it will 
not do with those, who, aware, of the 
mighty transformation that is called for 
into another heart and another character 
than before, labour to realize upon their 
persons that very Christianity which 
shone forth in the days of the New 'Testa- 
ment—when the all things whatsoever of 
human life, were consecrated to the glory 
of Him who is the Author of it; and the 
lamp of religion was fed by the incense 
of a perpetual offering ; and prayer with- 
out ceasing, 





and watchfulness with all 
perseverance, spoke the habitual attitude 
of men whose lives were ever girded for 
the work and girded for the warfare— 
who, in every change of experience, 
could find a something to do, that marked 
the discipleship on which they had en- 
tered ; and, on the constant outlook of 
defence against the disturbing forces of 
the world, could keep an unstained purity 
in the midst of its most deceitful blan- 
dishments, and a fervent unabated charity 
of spirit when assailed by its host of most 
galling provocations. 

There is indeed a mighty work to be 
done ere we die—that of crucifying the 
old man, and making a new man all over 
again—that of resisting the desires and 





188 ‘BREVITY OF 
the habits of nature, till they are at least 
vanquished, if not exterminated—that of 
transmuting the character of earth which 
we have at the first, into the character of 
heaven which we must acquire after- 
wards, else heaven we shall never reach. 
‘I'he distance, great as it is between the 
two states, must be traversed on this side 
of death, or we shall never attain a state 
of blessedness on the ether side of death. 
It is a far journey ; and short is the period 
that we have for the performance of it. 
With many of us the day is far spent; 
and the shades of night are gathering 
around us; and we still linger, and hesi- 
tate, and send forth our few feeble and 
ineffectual aspirations, at the mere outset 
of this vast enterprise. ‘The thing to be 
accomplished is, that we shall be trans- 
lated from the mastery of sin to the mas- 
tery of grace; or that the works of the 
flesh shall be abandoned, and the fruits 
of the spirit shall flourish upon our per- 
sons abundantly. Ere these mortal bo- 
dies go into dissolution, the life of Christ 
must be made manifest in them— else 
when they are raised again, and sisted 
before His judgment seat, they will be 
found unfit of occupancy in any of His 
everlasting habitations. The distance 
between hell and heaven is not greater, 
than is the distance between sin and sa- 
credness ; and what we have distinctly 
to do while we are in the world, is to 
make good our departure from the one 
territory and our entrance upon the other ; 
and, clearing our way from the entangle- 
ments which detain us on the outcast and 
accursed region, to break forth on a ca- 
reer of prosperous and progressive ho- 
liness. 

Now one entanglement may detain us 
as effectually as a thousand ; and the finer 
subtleties of the world as powerfully en- 
slave and implicate the heart, as do its 
most gross and revolting criminalities. 
Ye men, who sit at ease as if your work 
was over, or as if only a little of it was 
yet left which may be done at any time 
—we do not charge you with such sins, 
as go to deform your visible history. But 
we bid you remember that ungodliness is 
a sin—that causeless anger is a sin—that 
brooding anxiety is a sin—that depend- 
ence on the creature is a sin—that lan- 
gour in religion is a sin—that distaste for 


prayer isasin. We bid you think that 








s 


HUMAN LIFE. [SERM. 
countless are the sins which go to dese- 
crate the spirit, while they leave the as- 
pect of the exterior morality entire ; and 
the busy discipline to which you are 
called, is to war against and to subjugate 
them all. It lies with the single strength 
of any one of them, to keep you moored ~ 
on forbidden ground ; and we therefore 
ask, whether, escaped from them all, you 
are now bending in full sail to that land 
of uprightness, where nought that is un- 
holy can enter? You perhaps would 
like it better, could you let down th> 
guardianship of your spirts, and sink in- 
to the arms of an inert and unfruitful or- 
thodoxy. But know that the grace of 
the gospel is held forth, not that you may 
indulge but that you may deny ungodhi- 
ness. This it teaches, and this it enables 
us; and the full proof that you have to 
give of your discipleship is, that yeu are 
earnestly aspiring after the whole per- 
fection of heaven, and, through the im- 
plored agency of the Spirit on your 
hearts, that you are daily coming nearer 
to it. 

It is by the perseverance of your con- 
duct in the walk of the Spirit, that the 
life of the Spirit in your souls is upholden. 
The Holy Ghost is given to those who 
obey Him. Every act of charity, nour- 
ishes the principle of charity. Every 
act of forbearance, strengthens you the 
more against the assault of future provo- 
cations. Every commitment of your 
anxieties to God, trains you more to the 
habit of thus disposing the heavier anxi- 
eties that still may offer to oppress and to 
overwhelm you. The doings of the 
Christian life go to enfeeble all the cor- 
ruption that is resisted, and to confirm all 
the graces which have been put into 
operation. By reason of use, there is 
a prompter discernment, and a readier 
preference of all that is good-—a quicker 
recoil, and more resolute departure from 
all that is evil. It is thus that every 
honest disciple, toils his laborious way 
through the course of sanctification. 
He spares neither prayers wor pains, in 
this steep ascent up the hill of difficulty. 
He makes fast work of it; for that time 
is precious which is dealt out in small 
and precarious measurement, and when 
nevertheless a work on which eternity 
hangs remains to be accomplished. And 
thus it is, that he makes a business of 


XXV.] | 


BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 


189 


the concerns of his soul—watching, and | bitter provocations—a wrath, ye careless 
working, and connecting all his move-;and ye worldly, that you are now trea- 


ments below with the eye of Him that 
looketh from above—denying himself at 
every time of temptation, and crowding 
every day of his brief endurance in the 
world with the deeds of new obedience. 

We know not a text of more urgent 
and alarming import in the whole Bible, 
than that the righteous scarcely shall be 
saved. They will make out the prize of 
eternal life; but like the victorious 
courser in the race, they will make it as 
by the distance of a hair-breadth. Com- 
pare the task to be done, with the time 
that there is for the doing of it; and how 
it should speed us on to the business of 
our eternity ; and what an occupying of 
all our hours, and a plying of all our 
expedients ought there to be—lest when 
the night cometh in which no man can 
work, we shall be found short of the 
kingdom of God. 3 


If. But this carries us to the second 
head of discourse. If the righteous 
scarcely shall be saved, where shall the 
sinner and the ungodly appear? We 
are called to kiss the Son, while he is in 
the way. It isa short and a little while. 
The season of offered mercy is speeding 
onward to its close. In a few years, the 
likeliest of us all will be swept away 
from the land of gospel calls and gospel 
opportunities. The voice of a beseeching 
God is upon us only until death—after 
which the voice ceases to be heard; and 
the light of the Sun of righteousness is 
lifted up no longer; and the fountain 
that is opened in the house of Judah for 
sin and for uncleanness, has an ever- 
lasting seal set upon it; and a dark and 
impassable gulph of separation, opens 
asunder, between the souls of the impen- 
itent and the blood of sprinkling. Kiss 
the Son then while He is in the way; 
or, mark the alternative, His wrath will 
begin to burn. He who now is all meek- 
ness and gentleness and kind entreaty, 
will then look upon you with an altered 
countenance ; and it is indeed a striking 
expression—the wrath of the Lamb— 
the wrath of Him who is denoted by that 
which is the emblem of patience and 
non-resistance and timidity—a wrath 
then, to the excitement of which, there 
must have been a series of deep and 


suring up unto the day of its outpourmg 
—when you shall cry in vain for the 
rocks and the mountains to cover you ; 
and will be made to feel that no indigna- 
tion burns more fiercely than the indig- 
nation of slighted tenderness, and no 
vengeance more overwhelming than the 
vengeance of offered and rejected mercy. 

Nor should we marvel at such a catas- 
trophe—for only think of the way in 
which it is brought on. That Christ 
should so have toiled and suffered for our 
sakes—that He should have descended 
on our miserable world, from that emi- 
nence of pure and peaceful glory which 
He had before occupied—that He should 
have put on the infirmities of our nature, 
and shrouded His Godhead in a taberna- 
cle of flesh, which He took back with 
Him to Heaven, and which, for aught 
we know, will adhere to Him there 
throughout all eternity—that, amid the 
agonies of a mysterious conflict, He 
should have poured out His soul; and, 
undertaking for the guilty millions of 
our race, should have borne the whole 
weight of their chastisement—that, dur- 
ing the hour and the power of darkness, 
He, in the depths of a passion that well 
nigh overwhelmed Him, should in love 
to men have weathered such an endur- 
ance; when the sword of righteous ven- 
geance was awakened against Him ; and 
the.cup of retribution was put into His 
hands, and drunk by Him to its very 
dregs; and the vials of an incensed and 
insulted Lawgiver should have been 
poured forth by the Father upon the Son, 
when He bowed down His head unto the 
sacrifice—that thus He should have tray- 
ailed; and thus He should have put 
forth all the energies both of strength and 
of suffering, that the mountain of our 
iniquity may be levelled, and we may 
pass over in peace and safety unto God— 
that, after having made reconciliation, He 
should rise again to the place from whence 
He came, and be hailed by the shoutings 
of the celestial as the author and the 
finisher of a mighty enterprise—that, 
after having entered there, He should 
turn His face to that world in whose 
behalf this movement was made; and 
mark how the men of it were prizing the 
vast redemption, and crowding the now 


190 BREVITY OF 
open gate of transition which leads from 
sin unto the Saviour—Just think of this, 
and call you it no provocation, that, after 
the cost and the labour of rearing such 
an apparatus, the overtures thereof should 
fall in listlessness and without efficacy 
on the hearts of our alienated species— 
that this great work of deliverance should 
be vilified into a thing of nought, and by 
the very creatures for whose deliverance 
and whose welfare it was accomplished 
—that we should slight these tidings of 
the gospel as insignificant, or impatiently 
spurn them as an offence away from us. 
O, think of all this, and you will be at no 
loss to.comprehend, why He, who now 
stands out in the winning gentleness 
of His nature, and bends with longing 
compassion over you, should then come 
forth in vindictiveness and fury, on all 
who have put to mockery the dear-bought 
privilege ; and onall who have unthank- 
fully scorned the grace and the mercy of 
So precious an Invitation. 

This day of wrath is at hand. 'To 
you at least the time is short, when its fire 
will burn around you, and, through the 
openings of your mortal framework, as 
it goeth into dissolution, will it enter the 
premises, and seize the affrighted soul 
that now occupies therein. While in 
the body the surrounding materialism 
serves as a screen between us and the 
Deity ; and we can escape into a tempo- 
rary oblivion of Him and of His anger, 
among the scenes and the pursuits and 
the enjoyments of this visible world. But 
there is no such screen between God and 
the disembodied spirit—nothing that can 
shield it from the sight of His rebuking 
countenance, and the immediate glance 
of His fiery indignation. Weare bidden 
now, to speed our way from this impend- 
ing storm; and by movements too which 
are all expressive of rapidity—to flee 
from the coming wrath—to flee for 
refuge unto Christ—to haste and make 
no delay that we should keep the com- 
mandments. All which precepts, be- 
token the urgency of a matter on hand. 
And with reason too, for, if it do not 
become better, your condition is daily 
becoming worse—your conscience more 
seared against the denunciations of the 
law—your heart more proof against the 
terrors of the threatened vengeance— 
your whole person more warped among 


HUMAN LIFE. _ [SERM. 
the entanglements of sin, and more help- 
lessly captive than before to the great 
adversary. This day may aggravate 
your danger. This call that is now 
sounded, ye impenitent, in your hearing 
—if it kindle no purpose of amendment 
in your bosoms, may kindle a fiercer 
wrath in the bosom of the Divinity. 
Even now, may you be adding to the 
store of displeasure that is kept in reserve ~ 
for the great day of its manifestation. And 
close as you are to the brink of eternity, 
and short as the period is, that will con- 
duct you to its verge and plunge you into 
its abyss for ever—we ask, is it for you 
thus to accumulate the wrath of God, 
and_to cradle your souls into a delusive 
peace, on the very eve of its discharge 
upon you? 

Despise not the riches of His goodness, 
and forbearance, and long-suffering ; but 
know that the goodness of God should 
lead thee to repentance. And do not, 
after thy hardness and impenitent heart, 
treasure up unto thyself wrath against 
the day of wrath, and revelation of the 
righteous judgment of God. 

O avail yourselves, then, of the pre- 
cious moment that is now passing over 
you. Christ is offered to you. Salva- 
tion is at your choice. Forgiveness, 
throuch the blood of a satisfying atone- 
ment, is yours if you will. God does 
not want to magnify the power of His 
anger—He wants to magnify the power 
of His grace upon you. Try to approach 
Him in your own righteousness; and 
you will find yourselves toilimg at an im- 
practicable distance away from Him. 
But come with the righteousness of Christ 
as your plea; and you will indeed be 
permitted to draw nigh. God will re- 
joice over you for the sake of Him 
in whom He is well pleased ; and you 
may freely, and with all your heart, 
rejoice in God, through Him, by whom 
ye have received the atonement. Could 
we state the thing more plainly, we 
would. We want to bring you into the 
condition of a simple receiver of God's 
pardon—a simple holder on the truth of 
His promises. It is on this footing, and 
on this alone, that you will ever be 
clothed in the garments of acceptance ; 
or stand firmly and surely on the ground 
of reconciliation before Him. O furn 
then into this peaceful haven; and} in 


—xxvz] 


the act of so turning, God will pour out 
His spirit upon you. As the fruit of 
your faith, you will become a new crea- 
ture ; and in stepping over to that region 
of sunshine where all is gladness, you 
will be sure to experience also that all is 


THE FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS, 


19} 


grace—that the peace and purity of the 


‘gospel are ever in alliance—They who 


walk before God without fear, being 
they who walk before Him in righteous- 


ness and in holiness all the days of their 
life. 


SERMON XXVI. 


The Faith of the Patriarchs. 


“Por they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.".—Hesrews xi. 14. 


Ir is in the power of actions as well as 
f words to declare plainly ; and the pa- 
triarchs of this chapter made it as plain 
_by what they did as by what they said, 
whether it was that their desires and 
their affections were tending. Nothing 
could be more explicit of this, than the 
practice of Abraham—who gave up the 
place of his nativity ; and tore himself 
away from all its charms and endear- 
ments; and became a pilgrim in an un- 
known land: And in the hope of a very 
distant fulfilment, which he saw to be 
yet afar off, and lying greatly beyond the 
period of his life in the world, did he 
shape every movement of that life, at 
the bidding of Him who had uttered a 
promise, and in whose hand alone lay 
the accomplishment of it. What is very 
well termed a man’s general drift, stood 
most palpably out on the whole of his 
history. And in the same way, every 
human being has a prevailing drift, that 
may, in most instances, be pretty accu- 
rately gathered from certain obvious and 
characteristic indications, which are ever 
obtruding themselves on the notice of 
by-standers. 

But there is a distinction to be re- 
marked here. It may sometimes not be 
so very plain, what the particular inter- 
est is, which a man is prosecuting with 
the main force and intentness of his am- 
bitious desires—whether it be the love of 
money, or the love of power, or the love 
of acceptance and good will in society, 
-_ or the love of eminence above his fellows 
by the lustre of a higher literary reputa- 
ion. It may sometimes require a force 


of discernment to ascertain what the 
leading object of pursuit is—while, with- 
out any stretch of penetration at all, it 
may glare upon us with the whole broad- 
ness of day, where it is that the object 
thus aspired after is locally situated. I 
may not be able to pronounce cf the 
most bustling and ambitious member of 
our city corporation, whether his heart 
is most set on the acquirement of a 
princely fortune, or on a supreme ascen- 
dancy over all his compeers in the politi- 
cal management of this great commu- 
nity. But whether it be the one or the 
other, I can say on the instant, that the 
great theatre of his fond and favourite 
exertion is this, the place of our habita- 
tion—that it is here, and not in the 
neighbouring metropolis where his va- 
rious interests lie—that the game in 
which he is engaged is the business of 
this city, or the polities of this city, and 
not the business or the polities of any 
other—that it is among home society 
around him, where he seeks to signal- 
ize himself, whether by wealth or by in-: 
fluence, or by popularity; and not in 
any remote or distant society with whom 
no sympathies are felt, and for whose 
homage either to his dignity, or to his 
opulence no anxiety whatever has been 
conceived. All this may be’ plain 
enough without any piercing anatomy 
at all into the mysteries of the human 
character—so that, however difficult it 
may be to ascertain the precise interest 
which most engrosses the aim of any 
given individual, there may be nothing 
difficult in the question of the precise 


192 


locality, where all his interests and all 
the choice objects of his taste and of his 
affections are to be found. 

And thus, in like manner, while skill, 
and subtlety, and great power and inge- 
nuity of moral perception may be neces- 
sary, to estimate what that thing in the 
world is, which any of its people is most 
in quest of—yet it may be resistlessly 
evident to every eye, that they are the 
things and interests of this world, and 
not of any other, on which all its people 
are lavishing their time and _ their 
thoughts and the earnestness of their 
best and most devoted regards. We 
may not be able so to dissect the moral 
constitution of an acquaintance, as to 
find out of him, what that precise earthly 
object is, which wields the most tyranni- 
eal ascendancy over his affections—and, 
yet be very sure, all the while, that the 
object is an earthly and not a heavenly 
one—that it is ease, or fortune, or fame, 
or sensible indulgence (though you do 
not know which of them), on this side 
of time ; and neither any enjoyment nor 
any glory on the other side of it—that 
it is perhaps the advancement of a rising 
fami:y, stopping short however within 
the confines of the present life, without 
one thought of advancing either them- 
selves or their children to a station of 
immortality. One would need to be 
profoundly intimate with the hidden 
mysteries of our nature, to trace the nu- 
merous shadings, and varieties of world- 
liness that obtain in our species. But it 
may be a matter of the most obvious re- 
cognition to the most simple of men, 
that worldliness in some shape or other, 
is the great pervading element of all its 
generations. ‘This much at least may 
be seen, without the piercing eye either 
of scholar or satirist; and while the 
apostle said of the faithful whom he was 
enumerating, how they declared plainly 
that they were seeking a future and 
a distant country—we may say of 
nearly all whom we know, and of all 
whom we look upon in society, that they 
declare as plainly the world to be the 
only scene on which their hopes and 
their wishes do expatiate, and an atmos- 
phere of unmingled worldliness to be 
the only element they breathe in. 

It is not either that man is actually 
satisfied with present things. It is not 


FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. 


_[SERM. 


that he has set him down in’ placid ac- 
quiescence, among the creatures and the 
circumstances by which he is for the 
moment surrounded. We see nothing 
of the repose of full and finished attain: 
ment, with any of our acquaintances. 
There is none of them, in fact, who is 
not plainly stretching himself forward to 
some one distant object or other ; and, as 
the tokens of one who is evidently ona 
pursuit, do we behold him in a state of © 
motion and activity and busy endeavour. 
But when we come to inquire into the 
nature of the object that so stimulates his 
desires and his faculties, do we find it to 
be a something which lies within the 
confines of mortality—a something suited 
only to such senses and such powers of 
enjoyment, as death will extinguish—a 
something that he may perhaps hand 
down to posterity, but which a few rapid 
years will wrest away from himself, and 
that by an act of everlasting bereave- 
ment. We cannot move amongst our 
fellows, whether in meetings, or in 
market-places; or even on those convivial 
occasions when man is so willing to 
drown all his graver anxieties in the 
playfulness of a passing hour, without 
most plainly perceiving that the present 
is not enough for him—that he is con- 
stantly going forth in anticipation on 
some distant future, which he has not 
realized—that, instead of the quiescence 
of ane who has found, there is with him 
all the forecast and restlessness and out- 
look of one whois still agog and is seek- 
ing. ‘here is not an individual we 
know, who is not bending thus onwards, 
and that, with the set and strenuousness 
of his whole heart, on some object which 
lies or appears to lie in the perspective 
before him. But when we come to in- 
quire, how far on in the line of his his- 
tory it may be placed, we find, in the 
overwhelming majority of instances, that 
it belongs to the region of sense, and 
almost never to the region of spirituality 
—that the main forcée of human ambition 
is lavished on some swift and splendid 
evanescence, which cannot last to any 
single possessor beyond the limits of his 
own puny generation—that all are seek: 
ing, no doubt ; but where is the discover- 
able symptom, of almost any seeking be- 
yond the confines of that territory, which 
God hath spread under our feet, first for 


xavr] 


the sustenance, and then for the sepul- 
ture of human bodies? Where is almost 
the man who is prosecuting, with the 
assiduity of a business, his personal in- 
terest in that country where dwell the 
spirits of the just made perfect? ‘This 
tendency towards the distant unseen stood 
out most plainly and most declaredly on 
the history of the believing patriarchs. 
But now the tendency of almost every 
man we see, is plainly the opposite of 
this—so that on travelling the round of 
human experience, it may nearly be 
affirmed without alleviation of all, that, 
amid the heat and the hurry and the 
hard-driving of creatures in full pursuit 
of a something that lies in the distance 
before them, it is uniformly a something 


TAITH OF TIE PATRIARCHS. 


193 


years will witness its total and irremedi- 
able overthrow. 

But to alleviate this gross infatuation, 
it may be said, and with plausibility too, 
that the region of sense and the region 
of spirituality are so unlike the one to the 
other—that there is positively nothing in 
our experience of the former, which can 
at all familiarize our minds to the antici- 
pation of the latter. And then, as if to 
intercept the flight of our imaginations 


| forward to eternity, there is such a dark 





and cloudy envelopment that hangs on 
the very entrance of it. Ere we can 
realize that distant world of souls, we 
must pierce our way beyond the curtain 
of the grave—we must scale this awful 
barricado which separates the visible 


which they can only hold in frail and | from the invisible—we must make our 


fleeting tenantry while they abide in this 
world; and which death, remorseless 
and unescapable death, will soon ravish 
eternally from their grasp. ; 

To behold in man such a proneness to 
futurity, and at the same time such a per- 
verseness in all his computations of futu- 
rity—to see him so disdainful of the past, 
and so dissatisfied with the present, and 
yet, in labouring for the future, to fix his 
regards on that only futurity which must 
soon be present, and soon be irrevocably 
past—to see him so boundless in his de- 
sires, and yet so averse to that alone field 
of enterprise where he can have scope for 
them, and so unwilling to exchange the 
objects of time for those of a boundless 
eternity—to perceive him so obstinately 
and so peremptorily blind in this matter, 
and that not merely in the face of most 
obvious arithmetic, but in the face of 
most urgent and affecting mementoes 
with which the sad history of every year 
is strewing his path in this world of 
mortality—Surely, it is one of the strang- 
est mysteries of our nature, and at the 
same time, one of the strongest tokens of 
its derangement, that man shouid thus 
embark all his desires in a frail and crazy 
vessel, so soon to be engulphed by that 
sweeping whirlwind which sooner or 
later will overtake the whole of our ex- 
isting generation—or that, on the quick- 
sands of time, he should rear his only 
resting place, and even please himself 
_ with the delusion of its firm and secure 
_ establishment—though he knows, and 
most assuredly knows, that a few little 





} 


escape from all the close and warm and 
besetting urgencies, which, in this land 
of human bodies, are ever plying us with 
constant and powerful solicitation ; and 
force our spirits across the boundaries of 
sense, to that mysterious place, where 
cold and meagre and evanescent spectres 
dwell together in some unknown and in- 
comprehensible mode of existence. We 
know not, if there be ancther tribe of 
beings in the universe who have such a 
task to perform. Angels have no death 
to undergo. There is no such affair of 
unnatural violence between them and 
their final destiny. It is for man, and for 
aught that appears, it is for man alone, to 
fetch from the other side of a material 
panorama that hems and incloses him, 
the great and abiding’ realities with 
which he has everlastingly to do. It is 
for him, so locked in an imprisonment of 
day, and with no other loop-holes of com- 
munication between himself and all that 
is around him than the eye and the ear 
—it is for him to light up in his bosom a 
lively and realizing sense of the things 
which eye hath never seen, and ear hath 
never heard. It is for man, and perhaps 
for man alone, to travel in thought over 
the ruins of a mighty dissolution ; and, 
beyond the wreck of that present world 
by which he is encompassed, to conceive 
that future world in which he is to ex- 
patiate for ever. 

But, harder achievement perhaps than 
any, it is for man, in the exercise of faith, 
to brave that most appalling of all con- 


'templations, the decay and dissolution of 


194 


himself; to think of the time when his 
now animated framework, every »art of 
which is so sensitive and so dear to him, 
shall fall to pieces—when the vital warmth, 
by which at present it is so thoroughly 
pervaded, shall take its departure, and 
leave to coldness and to abandonment, all 
that is visible of this moving and active 
and thinking creature—when those limbs 
with which he now steps so firmly, and 
that countenance out of which he now 
looks so gracefully, and that tongue with 
which he now speaks so eloquently, and 
that whole body for the interest and pro- 
vision of which he now labours as stren- 
uously as if indeed it were immortal— 
when all these shall be reduced to one 
mass of putrefaction, and at length crum- 
ble with the coffin which incloses them 
into dust. Why, to a being in the full 
consciousness and possession of his living 
energies, there is something, if we may 
be allowed the expression, so foreign and 
so unnatural in death, that we are not to 
wonder if it scare away the mind from 
that ulterior region of existence to which 
it is the stepping-stone. Angels have no 
such transition of horror and mystery to 
undergo. ‘There isno screen of darkness 
like* this, interposed between them and 
any portion of their futurity, however dis- 
tant; and it appears only of man, that it 
is for him to drive a breach across that 
barrier which looks so impenetrable, or 
30 to surmount the power of vision as to 
carry his aspirings over the summit of 
wll that vision has made known to him. 
Now if this be the work of faith, you 
owill perceive that it is not just so light 
and easy an achievement as some would 
apprehend. Why, there are some who 
seem to feel as if nothing more were re- 
quired for the completion of this work, 
than merely to adjust the orthodoxy of 
their creed, and then have done with it. 
To acquire faith is with them as simple 
an affair, as to learn their catechism. Let 
them only import a sound metaphysic no- 
tion into the head; and this, they think, 
will -bear them upward into heaven, 
though their treasure is not there and 
their heart is not there. To seize upon 
the -title-deed to heaven, they feel as if 
they had nothing more to do, than to 
seize upon some certain dogma in the 
science of Theology: and that by keep- 
ing firm hold of this, they hold a kind of 


FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. 


[SERM. 


legal or stipulated. security for a place in 
the inheritance above. Faith is with 
them a mere embrace, by the understand- 
ing, of one or more articles in an approved 
system of Divinity. It is enough, in their 
imagination, to have a right to glory— 
that they be intellectually right about the 
matter of a sinner’s justification in the 
sight of God. Heaven is somehow look- 
ed upon as a reward to the believer for 
the soundness of his speculative opinions. 
The faith which is unto salvation, is re- 
garded in no other light than as the bare 
recognition of certain doctrinal truths, and 
the salvation itself as a return for such a 
recognition. The indolence of a mere 
theoretical contemplation, is thus substi- 
tuted for the practice and the pains-taking 
and the perseverance of men, in busy pur- 
suit of some object to which they are 
bending forward, with the desire and the 
diligence of an earnest prosecution. In- 
stead of the attitude of men who are seek 
ing, you witness the repose and the com- — 
placency of men who have already found. 
They look as if they had gotten all they 
want—-a sort of mystical assurance for 
the next world, but without one expression 
beaming forth from the history of their 
lives, that they felt themselves to be 
Strangers and pilgrims in the’ present 
world. There is positively nothing about 
them, which declares plainly, as with the 
patriarchs of old, that they are seeking a 
country. With the understanding, they 
occasionally meditate on heavenly things; 
but with the affections they uniformly and 
habitually mind earthly things. We see 
nothing to distinguish them from others 
in the style of their great practical move- 
ments in the world; nor can we charac- 
terize their faith in any other terms, than 
aS a mere entertainment given by the 
mind to the topics of an inert and unpro- 
ductive theory. 

Now this is really not the apostolical 
description of faith. It is not that which 
heads the enumeration of those Old Tes- 
tament worthies, who exemplified the 
power and the operation of this principle. 
The assent of the understanding to an 
one of the positions of orthodoxy, 1s nei- 
ther the substance of things hoped for, 
nor is it the evidence of things not seen ; 
or rather, as it should have been translat- 
ed, it is not the confident expectation ef 
things hoped for, neither is it the clear 


_and assured conviction of things which 
are not seen. This last is the principle 
which set all the patriarchs in motion. 
They saw future things, with as fresh and 
operative a feeling of their reality, as they 
Saw present things; and they acted not 
merely on the matters that were near and 
around them, but also on the matters that 
ere in the distance before them: and be- 
lieving equally in both, they just measur- 
ed their path and their proceedings in the 
world, according to the real importance 
of both. ‘This is faith; and you see how 
immediately, and without the intervention 
of a single step, practice emerges out of 
it—and how, by its simple presence in 
the mind, futurity obtains the ascendancy 
over all the purposes of the mind—and 
how, just as naturally as a man will pre- 
pare his house for the visit of a friend, be- 
cause he knows his friend is coming, will 
man prepare himself for the visit of his 
Saviour, because he believes and knows 
that his Saviour is coming. And hence 
the reason why the apostle minded not 
earthly things, but had his conversation 
in heaven, was, because from that place 
he_looked for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus 
Christ—All illustrative of this, that, by 
faith, a moving and prevailing force upon 
the conduct is made to lie in the conside- 
tation.of that which is coming, as well as 
in the urgency of that which is at hand ; 
that the way in which the reality of a 
man’s faith is attested, is by present but 
lesser interests being made to give way 
to future and greater ones; and that it is 
only he who declares plainly by his 
doings, that he is in quest of these future 
interests, it is he and he only who also de- 
clares that he is in the faith. 
Think for one moment of the apostoli- 
cal definition of faith. It is the substance 
of things hoped for, and the evidence of 
things not seen—or, as it should have 
been rendered, it is the confident expecta- 
tion of things hoped for, and the clear 
and assured conviction of things not seen. 
It is that which gives to an interest that 
is future, all the urgency and deciding 
- power upon the conduct, which belon 
to an interest that is present: And should 
the future interest be greater than the 
present, and they come into competition, 
_the one with the other, faith is that which 
_ resolves him who is under its influence, 
to give up the immediate gratification for 


FAITH JF THE PATRIARCHS. 


195 


the sake of the distant advantage. Thus 
it is, essentially and by its very nature, a 
practical principle : and no sooner does it 
take possession of the heart of any indi- 
vidual, than it holds out the plain attesta- 
tion of itself upon his history—and not by 
his dogmata, but by his doings. : 

But in the work of seeking, it is possi- 
ble to go astray. Paul gives an instance 
of this when he records it of his own 
countrymen, that they sought but stum- 
bled, because they sought to establish a 
righteousness of theirown. They sought 


'to win Heaven by purchase, instead of 





humbling themselves to the acceptance 
of it as a present. But to make out this, 
man must either equalize his doings to 
the demands of the law; or the shortness 
of the doings from the demands must just 
be overlooked, and a polluted obedience 
be sustained by God as an adequate price 
for the rewards of eternity. The former 
way of it is impossible. Man has already 
fallen short; and lost a distance, which 
he, with all his strenuousness, cannot re- 
cover; and incurred a guilt, which he, 
with all his payments and all his penan- 
ces, cannot atone for. The latter way of 
it is equally impossible. If it be true that 
man cannot clear himself of guilt, it is 
just as true that God cannot connive at it. 
It were carrying heaven by storm, and 
forcing a way into it over the ruins 
of the divine government—were the crea- 
ture, on the strength of his own deserv- 
ings, to challenge a place in it, while one 
single commandment that had fallen from 
the mouth of the Creator was either un- 
done or resisted. And when that crea- 
ture is man, so far gone in disobedience 
—such an attempt is marked both by 
a haughty presumption in himself, and 
by a most debasing sense of what was 
due to the holiness and authority of God. 
Man’s obedience is not worthy of heaven, 
as a reward from God—however worthy 
heaven may be of God’s munificence, as 
His free and unmeritéd donation to man, 
The gospel never relaxes into any com- 
promise with human unworthiness— 
when it affirms the footing upon which 
eternal life is held forth to our species. 
It is not earned by us in the shape of 
wages. It is offered to us in the shape 
of a grant ; and, whatever be the way in 
which we are to seek after a place in the 
kingdom of God. it is not by labouring 


£96 


to render an equivalent price either in 
our property or in our services, tha: we 
shall obtain the possession of it. 

Heaven is held out in the gospel, not 
in bargain as a reward to our perform- 
ance of God’s precepts, but simply in an- 
ticipation as a fulfilment to our hope of 
God’s promises ; and what place it may 
be asked is there for seeking after this ? 
How shall we seek that which is already 
gotten? or what conceivable thing is 
there to do, in quest of a benefit that 
is offered to our hand; and on the hones- 
ty of which offer we have merely to lay 
an unfaltering reliance? We can under- 
stand how to go about it, when the mat- 
ter is to seek that which we must work 
for. But if heaven be not of works but 
of grace, what remains but to delight our- 
selves in the secure anticipation of that, 
which we should count upon as a cer- 
tainty, instead of labouring for it as if it 
were a contingency that hung upon our 
labours ? 

And yet they are promises, and no- 
thing else, which put all the patriarchs 
into motion. It was just because they 
saw these promises afar off, and were 
persuaded to them, and embraced them, 
and confessed that they were strangers 
and pilgrims on the earth—it was just 
because of all this, that they declared 
plainly, both by their desires and by their 
doings, that they sought a country. Had 
the land of Canaan been proposed to 
Abraham as a thing to be purchased for 
a price adequate to its value, he would 
never have moved a single footstep to- 
wards the acquisition of it. But when 
proposed to him on the simple footing of 
a promise, and to obtain a right to the 
land he had nothing to do but to accept of 
it—from that moment he set himself bu- 
sily forward, in prosecution of all the re- 
quired steps by which he and his poster- 
ity were, not to buy a thing that was for 
sale, but to enter on the possession of 
a thing that was given. And it is quite 
the same of the heavenly Canaan. Eter- 
nal life is the gift of God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord—a thing not purchased 
by us, but purchased for us by another— 
a, matter so gigantically beyond any price 
‘that man could render for it, that, if held 
np to him‘in this aspect, it would look 
and rightly look to his despairing eye 
as if placed in the region of impossibility 


FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. 


tte i rem lt ns ai tiple ees tenance aes nine 


[SERM. 


away from him—a height of privilege 
and of glory, not to be scaled by human 
virtue at its utmost strenuousness ; and 
therefore brought down to human attain- 
ment, by the opening of a mediatorial 
gate, through which one and all of us are 
invited to enter upon the joys of immor- 
tality. But, instead of bidding him enter 
upon these joys, bid him earn them, and 
that by the produce of his own industry; 
and then, as surely as a task felt to be in- 
surmountable instead of stirring up his 
powers weighs them down to inactivity— 
so surely will heaven, held out not as a 
loving offer but as a legal payment, fast- 
en such a drag upon his exertions as 
is quite immoveable. Grace has been 
charged with ministering to human indo- 
lence. But it is free grace, and nothing 
else, which unfastens this drag—which 
releases man from the imprisonment that 
formerly held him—which brings him 
out to a large and open space, and sets an 
object of hopefulness before him that he 
knows to be accessible—which breaks’ 
him loose from the grasp of that law, 
from whose condemnation and whose 
penalties he felt so inextricable. So that. 
instead of doing nothing for heaven, when 
the gulph of a pathless separation stooa 
in the way of it, he can now embark on 
a career of approximation, where, by al 
his doings, and by all his seekings. 
he may declare plainly that heaven ». 
indeed the country to which he is travel- 
ling. 

It is said of the patriarchs in this 
chapter, that they were not only per- 
suaded of the promises, but that they 
embraced them. To be persuaded of 
them, was to believe in the truth of the 
promises ; to embrace them was to make 
choice of the things promised. Abraham 
chose his prospects in a distant country, 
rather than his possessions in the country 
of his father ; and, in the prosecution of 
this choice, did he abandon the latter, 
and plainly declare, by all his subsequent 
doings, that he was seeking and making 
progress towards the former. And a 
believer, now-a-days, is not only per- 
suaded that he has heaven for the accep- 
tance of it; but he actually accepts, and, 
in so doing, he, like the father of the 
faithful, makes a preference between two 
objects which stand in competition before 
him. He chooses heaven rather than 


_XXV1L 


— 


earth—the sountry ne nas in promise, 
rather than the country he has in pos- 


session—the place where God is revealed 


in sensible glory, rather than the place 
that has been so long unblest and unvis- 
ited by any manifestations of His pre- 
sence—the land of holy and upright and 
obedient creatures, rather than this land 
of moral uproar and disorder, where 
selfishness and sensuality and sin have 
dethroned the authority of Heaven’s law 


FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. 


197 


which he is released from the bondage 
of hopelessness ; and when, instead of 
idly aspiring after an object that is unat- 
tainable, he sets forth in the prosecution 
of an object now placed within his reach. 
It 1s not in proportion as the freeness of 
grace becomes manifest to the soul, but 
just in proportion as it is darkened by 
the fears and the fancies of legality, that 
the inquirer is kept back on his journey 
heavenwards. And it is not.true that he 


from the hearts of a degenerate family. | has gotten all he wants, when by faith he 


‘To make intelligent choice of such a 
heaven as this, is surely to prefer all that 
is in it and about it, to the world and the 
things that are in the world; and the 
more that it is true of our nature, and is 
averred most strenuously in the Bible, 
that our affection for both is impossible. 
The man who chooses heaven rather 
than earth, chooses what is essentially 
characteristic of heaven, rather than 
what is essentially characteristic of earth; 
or, in other words, he makes choice of 
the piety of heaven, and the purity of 
heaven and the benevolence of heaven. 
It is not by these that he purchases for 
himself a place in paradise ; but it is by 
these, that he prepares himself both for 
the doings and for the delights of para- 
dise. It is by.these, that he brings his 
taste and his temper into conformity with 
that which is celestial. It is by these, 


that he becomes a fit recipient for all 


those sensations of blessedness which are 
current there. It is not by these, that 
he secures his right to the inheritance 
above ; for this was put into his hand at 
the very outset of his spiritual journey. 
But it is by these, that he secures what 
is no less indispensable, he secures in 
his own person a capacity for the joys 
of that inheritance ; and by a transfor- 
mation of character from the secular to 


_the sacred, he can now breathe with kin- 


dred delight in an atmosphere of sacred- 
ness. . 

The point at which heaven is accepted 
as a gift, so far from marking that place 
in the history of a believer when he gives 
up his activity because he has now gotten 
all that he wants, marks the place of his 
breaking forth on a career of activity— 
at the entrance of which he was before 
bound by a spell that no exertion of his 
could dissipate. It is the very point at 


eee 


has gotten his justification. This has 
done no more for him than to open up 
the commencement of his path. It has 
only given him the right of entry into 
heaven; but it has not given those pre- 
parations of the heart and the character, 
without which heaven would be an abode 
of weariness. One can conceive that the 
mere right of entry, may be enough to 
satisfy the man who is merely persuaded 
of heaven being by his faith; but it is 
not enough for the man who has em- 
braced heaven as the chosen good of 
his existence. Ere he can attain the 
comfort of heaven, he must work him- 
self into the character of heaven. It is 
not enough that there be rapture from 
without. ‘There must be a relish from 
within. It is a place of. happiness to 
none, but to those who have a heart for 
its kind of happiness. It is guilt which 
has closed the gate of heaven against the 
men of our rebellious generation ; and 
there is not one of them, who would ever 
labour to qualify himself for the employ- 
ments or the society of a place that he 
could not enter. But by the death of 
Christ, the guilt is washed away ; and 
the gate is opened—and all to whom 
these tidings of joy come with accept- 
ance, feel as if a fetter had been struck 
oft from their persons, and so set them- 
selves forth to the work of preparation. 
It is indeed the loosing of a bond, by 
which they who aforetime were station- 
ary become free to move, and actually 
do move with alacrity as did the Psalm- 
ist. “O Lord, truly I am thy servant, I 
am thy servant,and the son of thine hand- 
maid, thou hast loosed my bonds. I will 
offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, 
and will call upon the name of the Lord. 
I will pay my vows unto the Lord now 
in the presence of all his people. In the 


vv 


198 


courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst 
of thee O Jerusalem. [Praise ye the 
Lord.” 

At the time when man was exiled from 
beyond the circle of God’s favoured and 
unfallen creation, he had acquired a guilt 
by which he forfeited the place of his 
original settlement ; and he had acquired 
a depravity by which he became incapa- 
ble both of its duties and its enjoyments. 
To retrieve this woful departure, so as to 
be admitted again to the standing which 
he before occupied—the guilt behoves to 
be atoned for, the depravity behoves to be 
done away. For the first, man is as in- 
competent as he is to liquidate the debt 
of millions by the produce of his daily 
labour ; and not till the discharge is ob- 
tained for him by another, will all his 
practice in the sight of God be any thing 
else than presumption, and all his at- 
tempts to establish a righteousness of his 
own, but demonstrate the utter worthless- 
ness and incapacity of him who makes 
them. For the second he of himself is 
equally incompetent. But the same Me- 
diator who for him hath wrought the first 
of these purposes, works in him the 
second of them. And this he does, not 
by superseding the activity of man, but 
by stimulating that activity—not by set- 
ting aside the machinery of human will 
and human intelligence and human ac- 
tion, but by setting to work that very ma- 
chinery—So that the man who before 
could not labour with any effect at all, 
both because he was without strength, 
and also because the obstacle of unex- 
_ plated guilt stood like a wall of iron in 
his way—now that the obstacle is re- 
moved, and now that the power of Christ 
is made to rest on the person of every 
honest and aspiring disciple—now begins 
that great process of transition in his his- 
tory, by which he departs from the cha- 
racter and the habits of a mere citizen of 
earth, and plainly declares that his heart 
is set upon other joys and he desireth a 
better country that is a heavenly. 

But the plain indication which Abra- 
ham gave of his seeking another country, 
than the one which harboured all the 
friendships and all the interests of nature, 
is different from the indication given of 
the same thing by a modern Christian. 
Lie demonstrated this by a visible act of 
Jocomotion. He simply left the place of 


FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. 


[SERN 


his nativity, and went forth in quest of a 
promised land; and, by a movement pal- 
pable to the eye of the body, did he prove 
that he renounced present things in pur- 
suit of other things which were distant 
and unseen. The Christian who sets out 
for the heavenly Canaan, and in so doing 
takes his departure from the Mesopotamia 
of this world, has not one mile of loco- 
motion to perform. He makes no visible 
transference of his ;erson from one place 
to another; and the whole change that 
he undergoes, lies in the transference of 
his affections from one set of objects to 
another. ‘This journey is altogether a 
spiritual one ; and the progress of it may 
be traced, not by his distance from an old 
country and his nearness to a new one— 
but by his distance from the old character, 
and his unceasing approximation to a 
new one. Yousee plainly where a man 
is going by the road upon which he tray- 
els; and if you can see as plainly what 
a man js seeking after, by the objects on 
which his heart is evidently set, then it 
may be as true of a Christian in our day, 
as it was of Abraham in reference to the 
promised land, that he declares plainly 
how heaven is the place after which he 
aspires—how heaven is the inheritance 
that he has selected and made choice of, 
as the joy of his heart and his portion for 
evermore. 

In this spiritual movement, there is a 
something that you have to forsake—not 
such a forsaking as causes you to go out 
of the world, but such a forsaking as 
causes you to give up the world—so that 
you may truly say, though I am still with 
thee in presence I am no longtr with thee 
in heart. ‘This implies as painful an 
abandonment of all that was before desi- 
rable and precious to the soul, as the pa- 
triarch had to undergo. 

For the rich man not to cast away his 
wealth but to crucify his affections to it 
—-for the man of eminence to become 
dead to the voice of praise—for the man 
of sensuality to abstain from every un- 
lawful indulgence, and both to overcome 
and to mortify all those appetites which 
war against the soul—for the man of 
sore and irritable feelings, utterly tc 
quench the anger and the malice and th: 
envy that wont to agitate his heart—fo1 
the man of worldliness, in any one shape 
to arouse him out of its inveteracy, so as 


4 


XXVI.] 


to thwart and entirely to traverse the | 


whole tenor of an existence, that had 
been devoted to gratifications which are 
unknown in heaven and which death 
will put an end to—In all these there is 
a departure as wide, and in every way as 
arduous, as is made by him who wrests 
himself for ever from his native land—a 
moral transition from one great principle 
to another, where there is a surrender 
and a work of separation as violent, as it 
is possible to conceive in any personal 
transition from one place to another—a 
resistance to the solicitations of nature’s 
tenderness and nature’s urgency, just as 
hard to be gone through as is that parting 
scene where the resolved missionary has 
to tear himself away from the embraces of 
weeping relatives ; and set forth from his 
parents’ and his sister’s home on an un- 
known pilgrimage, uncheered by the 
hope, nay steeled against the wish or the 
purpose of returning to it. 

But it were not possible to make a re- 
nunciation so mighty, for no positive ob- 
ject either of desire or of endeavour. It 
does not lie with the heart of man, to 
forego an old attachment but by the su- 
perior power ofanewone. He will not 
force himself away from a scene peopled 
with delights, for the mere sake of enter- 
ing on a scene of desolation. It was 

‘doubtless a day of gloom to the mind of 
Abraham, when he bade his long and 
last adieu to the place of his fathers. 
But he was not driven to such an exile ; 
he was lured to it by the prospect of 
another day, which he saw afar off and 
was glad. And, in like manner, when 
a Christian is drawn in affection from 
the world, he is still drawn by the cords 
of love and the bonds of aman. He 1s 
not told to cease his affections from the 
things that are beneath, without the ex- 
hibition of objects better and lovelier than 
those he is bidden to relinquish, and with- 
out being told to set his affections on the 
things that are above. And there he 
may behold by faith Christ sitting at the 
right hand of God; and with an eye of 
tender solicitude looking towards the 
world which He died to save; and wel- 
coming every applicant to that fountain 
of mercy which He Himself has opened ; 
and rejoicing, most sincerely rejoicing, 
over the approaches to it of every new 
‘spiritual patient—(for how is it else that 


FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS., 





199 


the cause of salvation cn be carried for 
ward, a cause on the prosperity of which 
His heart is altogether set ;)—and at the 
same time demonstrating by His word 
and example and Spirit, that the way on 
which the ransomed of the Lord pass 
over is a way of holiness—Thus binding 
every follower of His to the righteous 
ness which He Himself loves, and with 
drawing them from the iniquity which 
He hateth ; and from that beautiful sane 
tuary which He irradiates by his pre 
sence, causing the purity as well as the 
peace of the upper regions to descend on 
the soul of the believer. In the heart of 
every believer there is love to Christ— 
love to Him for what He is, and there- 
fore admiration of all the graces by 
which He is adorned. And such is the 
moral influence of this feeling, that it 
causes a reflection of these very graces 
on his own person ; and he longs for the 
society where the alone perfect exhibi- 
tion of them is to be found ; and the way 
in which he plainly declares himself to 
be seeking towards it, is by growing 
every day in the taste and in the acqui- 
sition of its moral excellence. Gratitude 
to Christ seeks to gratify Christ. Love 
impels to the keeping of His command- 
ments ; and following the impulse of 
these new desires, and labouring in the 
prosecution of these new interests, does 
the disciple bespeak the great movement 
that he has made from that earth which 
he no longer cleaves to, to that heaven 
whither all his wishes and all his efforts 
are continually tending. 

Before we conclude, let us offer two 
remarks, which may serve to explain the 
precept of laying up treasure in heaven 
—as it is by our treasure being there, 
that our heart will be there; and out of 
the abundance of a heart, so set and so 
situated, will there come forth such do- 
ings as shall declare plainly that we 
seek a country, which lies on the distance 
that is on the other side of the grave. 

The first way in which we grow in 
the heavenly riches, is to grow in a 
heavenly relish’ for the enjoyments that 
await us there. ‘To be in heaven with- 
out such a relish, were like the posses- 
sion of an ample fortune, without health 
or taste or appetite for any one gratifica- 
tion which it can purchase. It is onl 
by cultivating the musical talent, thai 


200 FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. [SERM. 


you can add to the rapture of the next; But secondly, the happiness of heaven 
musical entertainment; and it is only by | is not merely the result of a meetness be- 
increasing the spiritual habit of the soul, | tween its comforts and your character— 
that you fit the man for breathing with! it is also in part conferred upon you, 
kindred delight in that great spiritual ele- in the shape of a reward for service. It 
ment which composes the air of paradise. | is given as a return for your good deeds 
It is thus that every addition made to the —like wages for work—or payment for 
purity of your character, will render | a performance, that you have rendered at 
more exquisite your delight in seeing | the will or bidding of a superior. There 
God. Every addition made to the bene- | is at the same time a strong agreement 
volence of your heart, will cause it more | between this way of it, and the former. 
joyfully to respond to each note of hap-| A series of benevolent actions strength: 
piness, which is heard to arise from; ens the principle of benevolence; and 
among the choirs and the companies of | makes you therefore personally more 
the celestial. Every addition made to alive to all the delight, that is ever circu- 
your piety here, will the more heighten | lating in a region of benevolence. And 
your seraphic elevation in that place,|a series of successful conflicts with the 
where the glories of the Divinity will be | pollutions of the world, strengthens the 
expanded visibly before you. Every ad-| habit of purity; and makes you partake 
dition made to the intenseness and con- more largely of the divine nature, and to 
stancy of your love to the Saviour, will enjoy with fresher and livelier sensation 
quicken the more your heart-felt ecstacy the ethereal purity that encompasses the 
as you join in the song of eternal glory | divine throne. But in addition to this, 
to Him, who loved us and washed us| there seems to be a boon conferred upon 
from our sins in His blood. There are the righteous, specifically and formally as 
two ways in which you may become hap- a reward for their distinct services. And 
pier after death, either by obtaining an_ thus it is that he who giveth to the poor, 
outwardly better heaven, or by obtaining will, not only be happier in heaven, on 
an inwardly better heart for the enjoy- account of the finer and stronger and 
ment of it. But there is only one heaven | readier sympathies of kindness that he 
—with a gradation of felicity there, from bears with him from earth. But there 
the variety which obtains in the charac- will be an actual payment made to him 
ter and capacity of those who live in it. | like that of an account with interest, be- 
And thus it 1s, that though the righteous cause by giving to the poor he lendeth to 
are to shine as stars, yet it will be as one the Lord. And in like manner, he who 
star differing from another in glory. giveth a disciple a cup of cold water shall 
And thus it is, that you lay up treasure not lose his reward. And the rich are 
in heaven by an assiduous cultivation of | said to lay up in store for themselves 
the personal virtues upon earth ; and each | against the time to come, by being rich 
of these virtues is like another jewel in| in good works, ready to distribute, willing 
the crown which is to encircle you; and | to communicate. And alms done in 
the man who has got the true heavenly secret shall be rewarded openly. And 
taste, 1s never satisfied with his present’ prayers done in secret in the same way. 
acquisitions, but like Paul he forgets the And on the day of judgment, there will 
things that are behind, because there is | be a specific investigation made of specific 
still a higher eminence before him which | deeds of charity ; and you will be dealt 
he labours to attain: And hence hisun- with according to the principle and 
ceasing diligence to be found without amount of them—All proving that by 
spot and blemish against the day of | every act of obedience to the will of 
Christ—labouring after-all moral and Christ, you lay up treasure in heaven, 
spiritual perfection; and, with this as and so become richer towards God ; and 
‘he high aim of his ex'stence to which how plainly therefore you may declare 
he subordinates every other, declaring that you are seeking after a place among 
plamly that he is in quest of an object | His mansions, simply by a studious and 
which places him far beyond the gene- | pains-taking conformity to his will—by 
ral pursuits or sympathys of the world. | being stedfast and immoyeable and al 





c 


1 a3 
XXV1.] 


ways abounding n the work of the Lord 
—forasmuch as you know that your 
tabour in the Lord shall not be in vain. 
_ And to meet the alarms of orthodoxy 
upon this subject, let it be remarked, that, 
though there is no rewardableness in 
good works under the legal economy, 
there is under the gospeleconomy. The 
law ministers condemnation, and nothing 
e.se ; and, to flee from its penalties, do 
we take refuge with the offered Mediator. 
It is with Him now that we have to do; 
and while it is in His merit alone that we 
find a righteousriess commensurate to the 
truth and holiness of the Godhead, to 
Him do we at the same time concede 
a right to all our time and to all our ser- 
vices. And this is what He actually 
claims ; and deals out the tokens of His 
approbation to those who submit them- 
selves ; and, as the father of a family has 
his rewards and his chastisements, so has 
He; and thus, though redeemed from 
the curse of the law, we are yet not with- 
out law to God because under the law to 
Christ ; and all that is done unto Him is 
treasured up in His remembrance, and 
will be brought out in the great day 
of manifestation, as the proofs of our faith 
and of our faithfulness—So that it is by 
unwearied assiduity in His service, by 
living not to our own will but to His, by 
abounding in the fruits of that righteous- 
ness which He has prescribed to all His 
disciples—it is thus we shall declare plain- 
ly that we seek a country, that we seek 
the welcome of the judgment-seat, that 
we seek to enter into the joy of our Lord. 
Let us entreat you to lay all this to 
your consciences. Are you or are you 
not seeking a country? Many of you 
are quite familiar with the satisfaction 
that is felt, when stock is on the increase; 
when bills and title-deeds of property 
come abundantly into your possession ; 
and you can read in such documents as 
these, the authentic vouchers of the wealth 
that perisheth. Are you as familiar, or 
rather are you not altogether strange, to 
the satisfaction which springs from the 
consciousness of a treasure in heaven— 
from such an examination of self, as 
proves you to be sealed by the Spirit 
of God for an-inheritance that never fades 
—from the account of such virtues and 
the perusal of such characters upon your 
person as bespeak you to be a new crea- 
26 


FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. 


201 


ture in Jesus Christ our Lord? Tell us 

upon your honesty, ye hearers, whether 

the whole set of your habits and affec- 

tions is more upon the acquirement of the 
first or the second kind of property ? 

More upon the money which purchaseth 

all things, that serve to build or embellish 
our abode upon earth; or upon the sub- 

stance that so endureth as to be of worth 
in heaven, and to serve for the. wear 
of eternity? And: what is the kind of 

disaster which goes nearest to overwhelm 

you? Is it the sweep of resistless bank- 
ruptcy, that demolishes your fairest pros- 
pects in time? Or is it the urgency 
of some violent and unlooked for tempta- 
tion, that has well nigh oveithrown al! 

those hopes of a blissful immortality, 

which rest on the basis of experience ? 

O be at length convinced of nature’s folly 

and nature’s miscalculation. Let not 

these seasons which pass in sure and 

rapid flight over your heads, speak to you” 
in vain. Let the silent eloquence of 

friends, who, now tombed in their sepul- 

chres, and who in their little day laughed 

as loudly and thronged as busily for this 

world’s interests as yourselyes—let it 

touch and solemnize you. 

And O, though it be a thought of hor- 
ror—yet if possible to snatch survivors 
from the gulph of perdition, let us not 
withhold it—Just think of some such ac- 
quaintance—who toiled through life his 
unwearied round of earthliness, and with 
all the earthliness of his soul unbroken 
breathed his last—if from the place of 
despair he now occupies, he looks back 
on the land of opportunity and sends 
forth the bitter and unfruitful longings of 
his heart for one little hour upon its bor- 
ders, that he may have another call to 
repent and another chance for eternity— 
what he never can obtain you still pos- 
sess. The gate of Christ’s Mediator- 
ship to you is open. The road of ac- 
cess to that fountain which is for sin and 
uncleanness, is free and open. ‘That re- 
demption which is through the blood of 
Christ, even the forgiveness of sins, is 
held out to every creature who now 
hears us; and all the portals of reconcili- 
ation with the God whom you have of- 
fended, are most widely and welcomely 
open. The farm and the merchandise, 
and the domestic cares or the domestic 
comforts: may so eugross the soul, and 





. 


202 


deafen all its organs of communication— 
that the voice of the preacher shall be 
unheeded when he calls you to turn to 
Christ from your iniquities ; and, for the 
sake of the world that is future, to re- 
nounce the present one. But it is his 
part to preach though at a venture. And 


INCIPIENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. 


_ [SERM. 


he who hath ears to hear, let him hear 
—that breaking forth from the entangle- 
ments of sense, he may turn his path 
through life into a holy pilgrimage, and 
so declare. plainly that he is seeking a 
country. 


SERMON XXVIL. 


On the connection between the Incipient Duties, and the Subsequent Experiences 
of a Christian. 


* And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, 
until ye be endued with power from on high.”—Luke xxiv. 49. ~ 


You are aware that there was an inter- 
val of forty days, between our Saviour’s 
resurrection from the grave and His as- 
cension into heaven—that during that 
time He appeared upon various occasions 
and at various places to his disciples— 
that among others, He met them as far 
from Jerusalem as Galilee, whither they 
had gone, but whence it behoved them to 
return that they might witness His as- 
cension ; for this great event was to take 
place in the very neighbourhood of 
the Jewish metropolis; and thither it 
was appointed that the apostles should 
repair; aad there it was commanded 
them to wait, till, in the language of our 
text, “they were endued with a power 
from on high”—and, as it is expressed 
in the book of Acts, they were not to de- 
part from Jerusalem, but wait for the pro- 
mise of the Father, that is, to wait for a 
baptism from heaven, for they should be 
baptized with the Holy Ghost not many 
days after. There was a scrupulous 
obedience rendered by the apostles to the 
commandment. They did travel from 
Cralilee to Jerusalem. They returned to 
the mount of ascension; and continued 
with one accord in prayer and supplica- 
tion even till the promise came upon 
them, when they were all filled with the 
Holy Ghost, and began to speak with 
other tongues as the Spirit gave them ut- 
terance. 

We hold this narrative, short as it is, 
and consisting of very few steps, to be 
replete with soundest instruction; and 


which, in the further prosecution of this 
discourse, we shall endeavour to unfold 
and apply, in some of its leading parti- 
culars. 


1. By the descent of the Holy Ghost, 
they were endued with a power, which 
of course they had not previous to that 
visitation. “ Ye shall receive power,” 
our Saviour said, “after that the Holy 
Ghost is come upon you.” It is a 
power which they had not, then, before 
that the Holy Ghost was come upon 
them. But you will observe that even 
when destitute of this power, they had a 
part to act in regard to it; and were the 
subjects of a precept, that stood con- 
nected with the high and heavenly inspi- 
ration which was afterwards to data 
upon them. There was a plain and 
practicable bidding laid upon them, 
which was, to return to Jerusalem and 
to wait there. ‘They had power for do- 
ing this, though they had not yet the 
power that was to come upon them after 
doing this. ‘There was a power in their 
feet, that carried them to the place of as- 
signation. ‘There was a power in their 
wills that kept them there, and made 
them resist the movement of any incli- 
nation that might have seduced them 
away from it. ‘I‘here were certain com- 
mon powers and faculties, which they 
had along with other men; and by the 
obediently putting forth of which, in 
the way that was laid upon thein by the 
authority of the Saviour, they were af 


> 


xxi] 


€ 

terwards enjued with a power which 
signalized them above all other men. 
But meanwhile, they in a plain way, did 
the plain thing that was required of 
them. They walked back to Jerusalem, 
and they stopped there—till the fulfil- 
ment of the promise, which was to be 
realized upon them there. Had _ they 
gone elsewhere, or tarried elsewhere, 
there would have been no such fulfil- 
ment. The accomplishment that came 
after followed in the train of that move- 
ment which went before; and the en- 
largement of spirit, that came upon the 
apostles in the day of Pentecost, was the | 
distinct consequence of a very plain act. 
of obedience. 

The first general process then, which 
our text exemplifies, is that by which the | 
beginner is guided, from an humbler to 
a higher acquirement, in the course of 
his Christian education. It shows how | 
the obedience of such powers as he has, 


- INCIPIENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENUES OF A CHRISTIAN. 





can haste him onward to such larger 
powers and endowments as he at present 
has not. It shows that in the inferior 
‘stages of discipleship, there is a distinct 
and tangible something for him to do; 
and in the doing of which he is at 
_ length raised to its more elevated stages. 
We shall seize upon this narrative as an 
illustration of the very important princi- 
ple, that in no part of a believer's pro- 
gress, not even in the very infancy of it, | 
and further back than this, not even at 
the time when most sunk in the uncon- 





cern of nature and of the world, is there 
the want of some specific and practicable 
thing, to which he might and ought to 
turn himself; and which has a bearing 
upon the interest of his eternity. 

We read of the trumpet giving a cer- 
tain and an uncertain sound ; and a di- 
rection which could well be understood 
and instantly proceeded on by the ull 
grown Christian, might sound most un-_ 
certainly indeed, to the hearing of him | 
who is but a babe in the mysteries of the | 
gospel, and still more of him who has’ 
not yet felt one desire or made one move- | 
ment towards it. Yet there is a way of | 
dealing with them too, there is a word in | 
season for every man ; and for them also, 
there are words which can be spoken 
seasonably. In that low degree both of 
understanding and power, which obtained | 
among the apostles, immediately after the | 


“4 


203 


resurrection—the direction, given subse- 
quently, and even by themselves in their 
own epistles, would not then have suited 
them. They would have felt the obscu- 
rity of such sayings, as “ quench not the 
Spirit,” and “ glory in the cross of Christ,” 
and “have no confidence in the flesh,” 
and “be dead unto the law,” and “rejoice 
in the Holy Ghost.” And so, as a high 
point of wisdom and delicacy, our Sa- 
viour, in the treatment of these his imme- 
diate disciples, abstained from many 
things at the first, and limited himself to 
the utterance of such things as they were 
able to learn. He fed them with milk, 
and reserved his strong meat for the 
manhood of their Christianity. They 
would have been at a loss with very many 
of the instructions, which were scattered 
over their own compositions ; but at no 
loss whatever, how to set about the very 
obvious bidding cf our text—how to 
make use of their feet in carrying them 
to Jerusalem, and stedfastly to abide 
there, till the promised enlargement 
should come upon them. And there we 
read that they waited and they prayed, 
till, as the result of their own perform- 
ances and God’s promise together, they 
received that from Heaven which raised 
them nearer to Heaven’s light, and love, 
and liberty; and brought them up to a 
far higher platform in the ascent of 
Christian experience. 

Now the interesting question is, wheth- 
er a process similar to this ever obtains 
in the present day. Is such still the eco- 
nomy of grace, that the obedience which 
can be accomplished by a lower degree 
of power, elevates the Christian disciple 
to a higher degree of it? Will the com- 
pliance with such humbler directions as 
require less of light and knowledge to 
understand, carry forward the teachable 
inquirer to more of light and knowledge 
than he had before? What are the 
movements that we on earth can perform, 
so as to meet the influences which are 
rained down upon us from heaven ?— 
and whither shall we lead our footsteps, 
that we may receive of some promised 
enlargement? There is, it would appear, 
a visitation from on high, by which they 
who are the subjects of it, become ver- 
sant in the mysteries of the faith, and 
have the mark impressed upon them of a 
very peculiar people. ‘To them the 


204 


whole doctrine and phraseology of the 
gospel are familiar; and many are the 
truths which spring from that doctrine, 
and are couched in that phraseology, 
whereof they both see the meaning and 
feel the power and the preciousness. ‘T'o 
them the trumpet giveth a certain sound, 
while to them who have never yet been 
called out of darkness into marvellous 
light, it may sound most uncertainly. 
The technicals of Christianity may fall 
upon their ears, like the vocables of an 
unknown language. The truths of 
Christianity may be shrouded from their 
mental eye, by a veil that looks most 
hopelessly impenetrable. They may 
have no sympathy, and no common intel- 
Jigence, with the children of light ; and 
the question is, whether, with the unin- 
tellizence which they have as the chil- 
dren of the world, any space however 
small can be cleared out before them, on 
which they might make one step in ad- 
vance towards the knowledge and the 
faith which are unto salvation? Is there 
but one obvious truth on which they 
might lay palpable hold, and by which 
they may pluck all the other articles of a 
recondite Theology from their hiding- 
place 2—or, rather, is there any visible 
path of access that can lead them to the 
margin, and at length introduce them 
within the confines of a spiritual mani- 
festation, whereunto they have not yet 
been admitted? All which the Bible 
says of regeneration, and of the right- 
eousness which is by faith, and of the life 
which is hid with Christ in God, and of 
walking in the Spirit, and of God’s resi- 
dence within them as if they were the 
temples which He chose to decorate and 
in which He loved to dwell,—these, and 
many other expressions to be found in the 
pages of the evangelical record, may be 
as darkly incomprehensible to them, as 
any cabalistic responses that were ever 
given forth by the oracles of heathenism; 
and the question still is, whether for these 


INCIPIENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. 


[SERM, 
1 
with the Spirit of God, so still there are 
places of meeting with the same Spirit 
assigned for us ; and just as easily as they 
could do as they were bidden, when they 
went to their prescribed post, so can we 
do the bidding to repair to ours; that 
still there lies a distinct call, even upon 
the uninitiated, who are afar off from the 
gospel, as well as upon those babes in 
Christ who are nigh unto its fuller reve- 
lations ; that still, there is a progression, — 
by which all may come from the acts of 
a humbler to the powers and the spiritual 
gifts of a higher obedience; that still 
there are movements which might be 
done by us on earth, and by which the 
earthliest of us all may come within the 
limits of that influence which falls on 
certain gracious places in a descending 
ministration from heaven,—That so all - 
are left without excuse; and will not 
have to allege on the day of reckoning, 
at least of every neglected call which has 
been brought to their door, how, in each 
instance, it was too hard and too high for 
them—that their consciences through 
life, have been repeatedly plied with the 
obligation of duties as clear as they were 
urgent and imperative ; and to the per- 
formance of which, if they had not been 
wanting to themselves, God would not 
have been wanting with the aids of his 
orace, to carry onward their education for 
heaven—that, in short, for all there is a 
path which is plain, and a sound which 
is certain and intelligible,—that many, 
very many things, are laid upon us, 
which bear on-our future and everlasting 
Interests, the neglect of which can be 
traced distinctly, not to the want either of 
power or of understanding, but to the 
want of inclination—that for these at 
least we are clearly and fully responsi- 
ble; and because of these it will be 
found, not of the not able but of the not 
willing, that God has wiped His hands 
of every one of them, and they have 
themselves to blame for the undoing of 


men of our present generation, we can! their eternity. 


prescribe a way as plain, as that in which 
the apostles were bidden walk, when 
commanded to goto Jerusalem, and there 
to wait till they were endued with power 
from on high. 

Our general answer to this question is, 
that, just as Jerusalem was assigned to 
the apostles, for their place of meeting 


But to be more specific. One assigned 
place of meeting between man and the 
Spirit of God, is the word of God. In 
like manner as their ordinary and natural] 
powers took the apostles to Jerusalem, 
and kept them there—so our natural fac- 
ulties will avail us so far when put forth 
upon the Bible. ‘The Bible may be te 


XXVII] 
us, What Jerusalem was to them. We 
can at least place it before us; and bind 
ourselves over to the perusal of it; and 
direct our eye upon its pages; and give 
to it the same strenuousness of attention 
and of thought, that we give to any other 
composition ; and press the understand- 
ing, and the memory, and the conscience, 
and all the other gifts and sensibilities 
that are within us, into the service of be- 
ing rightly informed and rightly im- 
pressed by it: And this we can perse- 
vere in many days, even as the disciples 
of our Lord tarried for days at the post 
which was prescribed to them. The 
Bible is the post prescribed to us. And 
there is just one thing more to be added, 
in order to complete the resemblance be- 
tween the two cases. They waited at 
Jerusalem, and we are farther informed 
that they prayed. The promise of God 
that they should have the Holy Ghost, 
did not, it would appear, supersede, but 
stimulate their prayers for its accom/plish- 
ment. Instead of causing them to give 
up supplication, it suggested a topic for 
it. And so let us, to the forth-putting of 
all the light and strength which we 
actually have, add our supplications for 
more. More especially to the earnest 
heed which we give unto the Bible, 
det us add our earnest entreaties that God 
would open our eyes, to behold the mar- 
vellous things which be contained in it— 
let the diligence wherewith we ply all its 
various passages, be joined with devotion 
for a blessing upon the exercise—let us 
look unto the word, as unto a light that 
shineth in a dark place, and look up unto 
Him, at the bidding alone of whose 
voice, all the darkness can be dissipated 
—And just as the first Christians kept by 
Jerusalem, and in the earnest expectation 
there of a coming enlargement—So 
ought we to keep by the Bible, and con- 
tinue to give earnest heed unto the word 
of its prophecy, until (to use the very lan- 
guage of the apostle Peter), until the 
day dawn, and the day-star arise in our 
hearts. 

There is a peculiar fitness in the Bible, 
as a place of meeting between God’s 
Spirit and man’s spirit. It is the very 
place, through which a conveyance from 
the one descends upon the other. There 
is no other inspiration to be expected 
now-a-days, than simply the word of God 


& - 
INCIPIENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. 


208 


being made clear and impressive o us. 
When the Holy Ghost speaks to us, He 
makes use of no other vocables than the 
words of Scripture. When He illumi- 
nates the soul, it is by a lustre reflected 
upon it from the pages of Scripture. 
When He bears upon the conscience, -it 
is with the urgency. of some truth or 
some moral lesson, the whole letter and 
expression of which are to be found 
in the Scripture. He does not operate 
on the mind of man, but by putting Him- 
self into contact with the Scripture. And 
man ought not to look for this operation, 
but by just, on the other hand, bringing 
himself into contact with this said Scrip- 
ture. The Bible, ye hearers, the Bible 
is the place of concourse between the 
celestial influence from above, and the 
terrestrial subject that is below—the com- 
mon ground on which the two parties 
hold their conference the one with the 
other, and where the earnestness of man 
meets with the visitation of that God who 
rewards them who seek Him diligently. 
It is here, if any where, that if we draw 
near unto God, God will draw near unto 
us. ‘This is the field where the treasure 
lieth hid, to find which you must dig up 
and down upon it; and if you should not 
have succeeded, we have no other direc- 
tion to give, than that you must just dig 
over again. It is in the perusal and the 
re-perusal of Scripture, that you can ob- 
tain and make sure of the pearl of great 
price ; and the truth, and the power, and 
the enlargement which you are in quest 
of, are all embosomed there. ‘The word 
is the intermedium between God and 
man ; and it is through it, and it only, 
that the light of mspiration is given. 
You are at your post, when, in the act 
of reading God’s word, you may be said 
to place yourselves beside that, interme- 
dium, and there to listen for that voice of 
efficacy, which might transform you into 
anew creature. You may have to wait; 
but there is every assurance that no hon 
est inquirer shall have to wait in vain: 
and we believe it to be unexcepted, in 
the whole history of the Church, that, 
wherever there has been a desirous and 
a devoted attendance upon the word, 


‘there the demonstration of the Spirit has 


been added to it. 
Is there any here present, who, still a 
stranger to the light and liberty of the 


206 


gospel, has to complain that long and 
wearily he has knocked at a door which 
he cannot open? Perhaps he may have 
been reading without prayer, as many do, 
who, acquitting themselves of their daily 
_ chapter, drivel out their time at a forma 
and fruitless task-work. Then he is like 
what the apostles would have been, had 
they gone to Jerusalem, but sent up no 
supplication to heaven there. Or perhaps, 
under a sense of darkness and discomfort, 
he may have been praying for enlarge- 
ment out of the straitening which op- 
presses him ; but not looking to the Bible 
as the only channel through which the 
light of life is to flow in upon his soul, as 
the appointed place where the answer is 
to come, he may just have fared as the 
apostles would have done, had they not 
followed the order of going to Jerusalem ; 
but at some other part than that which 
was prescribed to them, thought of mak- 
ing up by the strenuousness of their de- 
votions for their palpable act of disobedi- 
ence. You are on the one hand bidden 
to search the Scriptures, and on the other 
hand to ask for the Spirit. Without the 
one, you will never find, in their power 
and in their preciousness, the truths 
which lie deposited in the other. Still 
these truths are to be gotten at a certain 
and specified place; and if away from 
_ the place, the help of the Spirit will be 
of no avai to you. 

To the apostles was offered the Holy 
Ghost at Jerusalem ; and to you there is 
the offer of the same Holy Ghost, in the 
act of giving your diligent and desirous 
attendance upon the Bible. The com- 
pound direction under which you lie, is, 
to seek for something in a given place, 
where that something is to be found ; 
and to take the aid of an able auxiliary 
along with you. If not at the place, you 
will seek in vain; and if you have not 
the aid you will also seek in vain. The 
Spirit sent forth upon the soul, is no 
mystic or undescribable afflatus ; and all 
his teaching, indispensable as it is, is 
couched and embodied in the literaliues 
of Scripture. You may have read, it 
availeth not if you do not pray ; you may 
nave prayed, it availeth not if you do not 
read. ‘They are the readings -and the 
prayers together which avail you. There 
are manv of this careiess and unthinking 
generation who do neithe? : 2nd there be 


: ° 
-INCIPIENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. 


' [SERM. 


some, with whom these exercises are 
prosecuted apart—we do not mean apart 
in time, but apart as to all dependence ~ 
the one upon the other. We ask you to 
proceed on the harmony that is between 
them—to knock at no other door than 
the door of Scripture for Heaven’s in- 
Spirations ; and at the same time to know, 
that, unless Heaven be addressed by your 
earnest and persevering entreaties, these 
inspirations never will be given. | 
And now for those, who, to justify 
their irreligion, complain that a plain 
path hath never been set before them.— 
that they might have been Christians 
had it not been for the hieroglyphical ob- 
scurity in which Christianity is shrouded 
—that they have not yet made one move- 
ment towards it, because they know not 
where to place their next footstep, and are 
quite sure that they could never find their 
way through its points and its paradoxes. 
It is thus they would excuse themselves 
—while all the while their Bible lies un- 
opened—while the plain question, “ of 
what readest thou,” remains unanswered 
—while, to solve this question, they give 
no time, either to perusals or to praying. 
And with a readable volume to lie beside 
them, ana invite their eye upon its-pages; 
and with the promise of that merciful 
Heaven which smiles so benignantly 
upon tnem, and offers to unravel for them 
all its mysteries—it is in the midst of 
such facilities as these, they will persist 
in their apathy, though at the very open- 
ing of that career which leads to Heav- 
en’s bliss and to Heaven’s glory. It is 
not because the way is inaccessible, but 
because the spells of earth and of earthli- 
ness have bound them. They have no 
right to complain of a hedge across their 
path. It is the manacle of their own 
hearts’ chcice and nothing else, which so 
detains and fastens them among the 
treacherous delights of the world. There 
|has Been pointed out to them a way as 
specific, as that which led the apostles of 
our Lord to Jerusalem. There has been 
made ta them a promise as sure, as that 
ot the power by which the apostles were 
endued from on high. And if during 
your short-lived day, you choose to give 
all your energies to its business and 
its pleasures—if in the unabated fervour 
| wherewith ye ply your busy round among 
the interests ane gratifications of sense 


* 


you are scarcely, if ever, arrested a sin- 
gle hour for one pause or one preparation 
of seriousness—The great searcher of 
hearts will Himself not only pronounce’ 
but vindicate your doom, when He tells 
from the judgment:seat, of the Bible that 
He sent and the Spirit that he offered to 
you. 

Nor is it enough to vindicate your un- 
concern, that the evidence for this Bible 
is still unseen by you—that you have yet 
met with nothing to over-power you into 
the conviction of its truth—that, for aught 
you know, it may be the record of a base 
and unprincipled imposture, instead of an 
authentic and authoritative message from 
the upper sanctuary. The Bible may 
not stand forth in such characters of cer- 
tainty, as to compel your instantaneous 
belief; and yet stand forth in such char- 
acters of likelihood, as to challenge your 
instant and most serious inquiry. We 
do not require of you to believe in the ab- 
sence of proof; but we require of you to 
peruse and to ponder and to investigate, 
m the midst of many semblances and 
many probabilities. We do not affirm, 
that, on your very first look at Christian- 
ity, . will see as much as to force the 
whole system of its doctrines and articles 
at once into your creed ; but we affirm, 
that, on your very first look at Christian- 
ity, there appears as much on its forehead 
as should constrain your candid and re- 
spectful attention to it. It is not our de- 
mand, that you should believe without 
inquiry ; but it is our demand that you 
should not reject without inquiry. We 
do not say there is enough in and about 
the Bible, to dogmatise you into the 

sudden assurance of its infallibility ; but 
we say, that, in and about this Bible, 
there is enough to rivet your regards, 
and rebuke away all your heedlessness. 
How, I would ask, have you disposed of 
the history of its miracles? And how of 
that magnificent train of prophecy, that 
‘so accords with the general march and 
movement of our world? How have 
you contrived to resist the appeal, which 
is'made in behalf of Scripture, by the ex- 
jstence of the Jews as a separate and 
‘monumental nation? Or have you so 
mastered the records of other times, as to 
‘warrant your summary rejection of a 
' volume, that so many of the wise and the 
' good in all ages have revered? Or have 


INCIPIENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. 











207 


you looked into its pages; and, putting 
your hand upon your bosom, can you 
honestly say, that you have discovered 
no characters of truth and of sacredness; 
and that you have met with no one pre- 
sumption on its side, either in the lofti- 
ness of its morality, or its searching dis- 
cernment into the human spirit? Still 
we do not ask your faith, ull the eviden- 
ces of its truth have been manifested ; but 
we ask your faithful and assiduous in- 
quiries, till you have the manifested evi- 
dence of its falsehood. We beg you not 
to look so safe and so satisfied, in your 
habitual neglect of this religion, as if im- 
posture were plainly and palpably writ- 
ten on the face of it: And we put the 
question— whether, with nothing to lose 
if it be false, and every thing to lose if it 
be true, you would hazard one earthly 
interest that belongs to you, in the way 
that the contemners of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ have staked the fortune of their 
eternity? O, they have done repeated 
violence, even to the light and the voice 
of nature, in their treatment of Christian- 
ity; and when visited, as they have 
sometimes been, with the suspicion that 
they are wrong, their own natural con- 
science hath testified against them. 

The Bible, with its many probabilities 
that should urge them to begin the inves- 
tigation, and its many proofs that would 
have met and multiplied upon them ere 
they had gotten to the end of it—this Bi- 
ble when opened in the day of reckon- 
ing, will be their coming witness ; and 
will furnish against them many a clear 
principle of condemnation. He who 
ponders the heart, and hath an eye upon 
all its secrets, will bring out the lurking 
unfairness to the light of day—will un- 
cover the moral perversity that hung at 
the’ bottom of it all—will make it clear 
to every looker-on, that never in one in- 
stance, has a thorough earnestness after 
truth, missed of evidence enough for all 
the truth which is unto salvation ; that if 
any did not see, it was because they did 
not seek ; that if strangers to the light, it 
was because they shut their eyes against 
it; that if they abode in darkness, it was 
because they loved the darkness and chose 
to abide in it. It is not that they had no 
proof for the ways of God ; but that they 
had no pleasure in these ways—not that 
there was a want of harmonious and 


208 


convincing doctrine on His part, but a 
want on theirs of any desire after it: 
and this is the condemnation, that their 
desires were away from heaven and bent 
upon earth—that, whatever the decencies 
of their outer man, these deeds of the 
inner man were evil, 

We have expatiated so long on this 
one illustration wherewith our text has 
furnished us, that not enough of time is 
left, for other and similar illustrations. 
The general principle of them all is, that 
we creatures on earth, are not left unbid- 
den and untold of some one movement 
that each of us can make; and in the 
making of which, we shall meet, if we 
will, some farther light and influence 
from heaven. ‘The apostles could not 
take the celestial flight of following the 
Lord Jesus Christ in the air; but they 
could at least perform the terrestrial mo- 
tion of a walk to Jerusalem—and there 
it was that a power and an enlargement 
from above came upon them. We can- 
not, in the words of Paul, we cannot as- 
cend up on high, and thence bring down 
the light of God’s sanctuary upon our 
soul—We cannot descend into the deep, 
and thence bring up any secret thing 
from its unfathomable recesses; but we 
can at least go to the word which is nigh 
unto us, and from the Spirit through the 
medium of the word, get all that is need- 
ful of Heaven’s power and Heaven’s il- 
lumination. ‘The Bible stands to us, in 
place of Jerusalem to the first disciples ; 
and many other are the ordinances of 
God, each of which may be regarded in 
the light of a waiting-post—where if we 
do some palpable things that lie within 
the compass of human hands, and have 
the desire which should be felt in sin- 
cerity and should issue in prayers from 
human hearts, God will not fail of the 
grace and the loving-kindness, that He 
has promised to all who seek him dili- 
gently. This view of the matter, 
stamps a peculiar and characteristic value, 
on all that might he termed the ordi- 
nances of religion. They are such 
things as man can do in the letter of 
them; and in the doing of which, with 
hearts of desire and hands of diligence, 
God will pour forth of the Spirit upon 
them. ‘hey offer precisely those occa- 
sions, in which God and man meet as 
tellow-workers towards the same end: 


INCIPIENT LUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. 


[SERM 


when without the co-operation. of the on 
nothing will be given, and without the 
co-operation of the other nothing will be — 
received. The Sabbath is just such an 
ordinance; for you can then rest, and 
abstain from all earthly business, and 
read books of sacredness, and give 
your presence to the solemn assem- 
bly, and perform certain movements 
which may be said to be terrestrial, and 
put yourself into certain attitudes which 
are also terrestrial; and to all which 
done by you below, if you are only 
prompted by a seeking heart, a celestial 
virtue from above will be given. In the 
opinion of some, the table of the Lord 
has a converting as well as a confirming 
efficacy ; and they will look on the sa- 
crament of the Supper as such another 
ordinance. And most certain it is, that 
the church whither you repair in obe- 
dience.to the precept of “ forsake not the 
assembling of yourselves together,” is 
precisely such an ordinance. ‘This isa 
Jerusalem to. which you are bidden as 
the place of your weekly resort; and 
you are at an assigned post, when your 
feet stand within its gates. ‘hither do 
the worshippers of the Lord go up, unto 
the testimony of Jesus; and there do 
they give thanks to the remembrance of 
His name. Where two or three are 
met together in that name, there’ He is 
in the midst of you. This is one of the 
chosen spots which He loves to bless and 
to hallow; and it is here of all other 
places, where the presence of man meets 
with the promise of God. Without at- 
tendance upon Church, you may fare as 
the apostles would have done, had they 
not waited at Jerusalem ; and still if it is 
but the attendance of heartless and hack- 
neyed formality, you may fare even as 
they would have done, had they waited 
at Jerusalem, but had not prayed. ‘To 
the duteous regularity of your presence, 
add the devoutness of your prayers , and 
here too living water will descend, and 
sons and daughters will be turned unto 
righteousness. . 
Some there are who despise the ordi- 
nances. ‘They have no right to imagine 
that the Spirit will be theirs. Others there 
are who rest upon the ordinances; and 
to them the Spirit will be as little given. 
It is only to them who are found at the 
prescribed place upon earth, that we can 


rm —~™S ~ 


XXVIII] CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 209 


expect the counterpart promises of heaven | from you an assiduous church-going— 
to be fulfilled. But then they must have| we would bid you look up assiduously 
a dependence and a desire towards the | to that quarter whence alone the blessing 
promises—And so while we would exact | and the efficacy are to come. 


SERMON XXVIII. 


Connection between Faith and Peace. 


‘Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”— 
Romans v. 1, 


Ir is, in the first place, evident, that no | his reasoning, when he vindicates justi- 
man can have true faith in God, whose | fying faith from the imputation of Anti- 
faith does not extend to the whole cf | nomianism. But while he thus reasons, 
God’s testimony. If He choose to de-| and incontrovertibly too, about the rela- 
liver more than one intimation, we can-/| tion and the influence and the bearing 


- not be said to put faith in Him—unless | of the several doctrines of Christianity on 


we give credit, not to one only, but to all | each other, each individual doctrine may 
His intimations. And this of necessity | of itself have failed to make its distinct 
conducts us to the inference, that, if faith | lodgement in his understanding, and its 
attach itself only to a few particulars of | distinct impression upon his heart. The 
God’s communication ; or if certain por-| whole matter may yet have come to him 
tions of Scripture be dwelt upon with a} in word only and not in power ; and the 
warm and _ special satisfaction, while | words or terms which he employs, and 
other portions are entertained with cold- | are expressive of the doctrine in question, 
ness, or resisted in the plain and obvious | may be no more than the symbols made 
meaning of them by an overstretched ap- | use of in a logical process, which is con- 
plication of the favourite doctrine—Or, | ducted by him at the same time with the 
in other words, if the faith be partial, it | skill and the soundness of a logic that is 
is not real, quite unexceptionable; and thus the 
But, in the second place, it is a very | whole matter may come to him, both in 
possible thing, that a man may possess a | word and in argumentation, and yet not 
general belief in God’s testimony, with-; come in power. On every subject, in. 
out directing a strenuous attention, or | deed, there is a great danger of the mind 
bestowing a fixed and steady regard, on | satisfying itself with rapidly-sketched 
any one of its particulars. He may | generalities, without appropriating in de- 
vaguely admit the trueness of all; and | tail their several and distinct truths. In 
yet not actually believe the trueness of | the case of Christianity, this danger is 
any. He may be able to demonstrate, | fearfully aggravated—where one may 
how the abuses of one doctrine are re-| have a literal discernment of its truths, 
strained by the faithful applications of | without a saving and a spiritual discern- 
another doctrine ; and that therefore any | ment of them. Let us therefore be care- 
such abuses can never be chargeable on ful to attend to each of them severally 
the true faith which embraces both, but ; and particularly ; and, instead of count- 
only on the spurious faith which has/| ing it enough that we bestow one com- 
adopted the one while it has rejected the | prehensive glance upon the whole—let 
other. And yet all the while he may | us feel that if we give not earnest heed 
just have as little of the true faith, as the | to each of the things that we read in this 
man whose error he has completely de-| book, we neglect the great salvation that 
molished by the power of his argu-|is unfolded in it. : 
ment. He may be quite triumphant in| He who, has a true faith, will admit all 
27 





210 


the known articles of Christianity into his | his views. 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 


[SERN. 


He may so generalize his 


belief; and he will give his earnest en-! survey, as to overlook particulars. It is 


deavour to the object of ascertaining these 
articles; and he will dwell at distinct 
times distinctly upon each of them ; and 
‘his faith of his, while it embraces all, 
will also single out each as a separate 
object of attention; and the business of 


each will be pressed home on occasions’ 


_ of need upon the understanding and the 
heart. 


the object of it the whole testimony of 
God, yet it is by faith exercising itself on 


each portion of that testimony, that the | 


influence or the benefit of that portion is 
realised to the believer. If he merely 
cast a summary look at the whole, even 
though it be a look of acquiescence, he 
may still miss every distinct benefit of 
that salvation which is unto all and upon 
all who believe. He may profess an ac- 
quiescence in the whole, and yet be a 
stranger to the habit of acting faith in 
any particular. Now it is by the dis- 
tinct acting of his faith in some particu- 
lar of the divine testimony, that a par- 
ticular promise is fulfilled to him; ora 
particular privilege made good to him ; 
or a particular necessity met and re- 
lieved, 
to cure a man in the gospels, He did not 


demand of him at the time whether he | 
believed that Christ was able to do all | 


things—but whether he believed that He 
was able to dothis thing; and according 
to his belief so was the thing done unto 
him. When we ask for wisdom, we are 
required to ask it in faith ; and the ob- 
ject of the faith is that God giveth to all 
men liberally and upbraideth not. When 
we ask for the Spirit, the belief that 


bringeth down a fulfilment of our peti-| 
tion, is the belief that God giveth His. 


Spirit to them who ask it. Wher we 
obtain forgiveness through faith, it is spe- 
cifically stated in the Bible, that it is 
through faith in the blood of Christ. 
-Each truth of Christianity forms a dis- 
tinct topic for the exercise of faith; and 
it is wken the faith so exercises itself, 
that the good corresponding to that truth 
is realised to the believer. Doubtless, 
some of these truths have a more per- 
vading influence over the range of Chris- 
tian contemplation ; but an inquirer may 
loge himself in the comprehensiveness of 


And here it is altogether worthy | 
of remark, that, though faith includes as | 


When our’ Saviour was asked | 


\ 





true that a real faith will have room for 
all that is known to be of divine attesta- 
tion. But each distinct attestation will 
be entertained, will be dwelt upon, will 
be turned to its appropriate use, will be 
viewed in its connection with the others ; 
and, so far from excluding these others, 
the attention and the trust and the inter- 
est which have been attached to this one, 
will form the best guarantee for all of 


| them properly exercising the mind, and 


properly influencing the conduct of the 
believer. 

And if there be one doctrine of more 
primary and pervading importance than 
another, it is that which relates to the 
question of our justification before God. 
Disguise it as he will, there is not a ra- 
tional man who feels himself on terms of 
solid confidence, with the Being who 
made and who sustains him. ‘There is 
not one of them who can look God fully 
and fearlessly in the face, and say of Him 
that He is my friend. ‘There is a lurk- 
ing suspicion about Him, in virtue of 
which the creature shrinks from the 
Creator, and flies away from the thought 
of Him, to such perishable vanities as | 
may grant him temporary relief or occu- 
pation. Conceive his intercourse with 
tne visible world to be in some way sus- 
pended, and the invisible God to draw 
near by some convincing manifestation ; 
and he would not feel at ease or comfort 
in his presence. Let the feeling be as 
deep and inexplicable as it may, still is 
terror at God, the real and the powerful 
and the constant feeling of nature. As 
inferior animals flee from the presence 
of man, even though they know not 
whether it be friendship or hostility that 
is in his bosom—so there is in man the 
same instinctive dread of the Deity. And 
there is doubtless a foundation for it. 
There is the consciousness of guilt 
‘There is the uncontrollable sentiment of 
a power, which can carry all its purposes 
into execution, and which he has done 
nothing and can do nothing to propitiate. 
There is the haunting idea of a great 
and righteous Monarch, who can sum- 
mon all creation into His presence, and 
sweep all iniquity and whatsoever offend . 
eth away from Him. The sinner who 
has his mind darkened, as well as his 


_ XXVIIt] 


_ heart alienated from God, may not clearly 
perceive the connection between his sin 
and his fearfulness. It may be as much 
of a sensitive, as it is of an int -iligent re- 
coil, from the great Lawgiver. But is 
not this saying enough for the wretch- 
edness of his condition, that, to make it 


tolerable, God must not be thought of | 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 


211 


ted with the anticipatio.ss and the images 
of terror 2 

In these circumstances, a restoration to 
the divine favour must be a question as 
big with interest to man, as the question 
of a passage from death unto life. It 
stands identified with the main object of 
his existence. If it remain unsettled, al} . 


but forgotten ; and that, to secure him| theology is superfluous, and but the mock- 


ease, he must so surround himself by the 
idolatry of sense, as to intercept from the 
eye of his mind that unseen Spirit, from 
whence he took his origin; and that, to 
enjoy time without disturbance, he must 
shut out the view of an approaching eter- 
nity ; and that he cannot brave the reali- 
ties which are before him and around 
him, but must bury his intoxicated soul 
in delusion that he may gain the respite 
of his present transitory life, from a state 
of darkness and dreariness and despair ? 
This is the real and universal way in 
which Humanity, when awake to her 
own condition, stands moved with refer- 
ence to God. It is a state of fear, and a 
State of antipathy. ‘The question may be 
shunned and lie dormant, for months and 
for years, amongst those numberless ex- 
_pedients of diversion, by which the God 
of this world confirms the empire of de- 
ceitfulness over his infatuated victims. 
But if ever it be fairly looked to, such is 
the actual revolt of man from the God 
who formed him. And the death which 
carries his disembodied spirit to the God 
who gave it; and the judgment which 
brings the piercing eye of omniscience, 
upon all the secrecies of his heart and 
history; and the dissolution of the pre- 
sent system of things, in which he now 
screens himself from the Deity as in 
a hiding-place: and the immortality, 
throughout the whole of which he con- 
ceives that there will be no intervening 
materialism to stand between himself and 
the Being with whom he has to do—all 
these suggest the idea of God and man 
being brought into nearer or more visible 
contact with each other; and let Nature 
say herself, whether she feels more at- 
tracted or repelled by it—let her answer, 
whether the prospect of these things look 
inviting or formidable to her eye: And 
is it not clear that God is felt by man as 
an enemy, if every event by which man 


ery of a heartless speculation. That man 
should seize upon this as a_ preliminary 
question, and give to it his first and his 
foremost earnestness, is just saying that 
man, after he has become an inquirer into 
the things of God, still cannot escape from 
the urgency of the principle of self-pre- 
servation. Let us cease to wonder, then, 
that the topic of acceptance with God 
should have so exercised the minds of 
the men of all ages; or that they should 
have directed their longing attention to a 
matter so important, and at the same time 
so personal, as that turning point, at 
which God, from the enemy of a restless 
and terrified sinner, becometh his friend. 

But the question, how shall God, from 
the enemy of man become his friend, just 
resolves itself into the question, how shall 
man be justified before God? Had man 
rendered a full obedience, it would not 
have been a merciful buta righteous thing 
for God, to have favoured and cherished 
and rewarded him. But man has not 
rendered this obedience ; and while there- 
fore it is a merciful thing for God to take 
him into acceptance, let us beware of 
thinking that this is done in such a way, 
as not to make it a righteous thing also. 
If done in the latter case, it must be as 
righteous a proceeding, as it would have 
been if done in the former case. There 
may be a special putting forth of one at- 
tribute, in this dispensation of favour to 
the guilty—but not to the disparagement 
or the letting down, of another attribute. 
The character of the Deity, we may be 
assured, will sustain no mutilation by any 
one act in the moral administration of the 
Deity ; and unless the truth and the holi- 
ness and the justice and the other perfec- 
tions of God give their full consent to the 
exercise of His mercy, then the exercise 
of His mercy is impossible. Accordingly 
when we read, in the New Testament, of 
that salvation which is unto the sinner— 


is brought nearer to God is thus associa- | thisis spoken of as done for him by grant- 


- 


212 


ing him a righteousness, as well as by 
granting him the remission of his sins. 
He is, somehow or other, invested with a 
righteousness, which renders it a just 
thing in God to justify him. ‘There is no 
man, we believe, who is visited with a 
real and practical earnestness in the work 
of seeking after God, who will ever feel 
himself in grounded and settled peace, on 
the imagination ofa bare act of mercy in 
his behaif. He will not obtain a secure 
and firm repose on any such foundation— 
and will thus in spite of himself, offer an 
involuntary homage to the holy and in- 
flexible attributes of the Godhead. He 
will seek for a something which he might 
render up unto those attributes, and by 
which he might make them propitious to 
himself; and therefore it is always the 
question of longing, restless and dissatis- 
fied nature,—‘ Wherewithal shall I ap- 
pear before the Lord and bow myself unto 
the most high God 2?” 

In the prosecution of the following dis- 
course let us endeavour, in the first place. 
to explain the meaning of the term justi- 
fy—in the second place, to show how it is 
that we are justified by faith——in the third 
place, how it is that by this faith we have 
peace with God—and lastly point your 
attention more particularly to Jesus Christ, 
as the medium of conveyance—through 
which we obtain so inestimable a_bless- 
ing. We may then conclude with a few 
such observations as the whole topic is 
fitted to suggest. 

To justify a man, is sometimes used in 
the sense, of to vindicate him from the 
charge of having done that which is evil. 
If he be made the subject of a criminal 
imputation, of which you succeed in prov- 
ing him to be clear, you justify him from 
that imputation. If something be laid to 
his charge, and you undertake his defence 
and make out his innocence, you justify 
him from the charge. It certainly is of- 
tener understood in the sense—to make 
out his innocence of what is wrong—than 
to make out his pretension to what is posi- 
tively righteous. So that the word “to 
justify,” im its common acceptation, is not 
so comprehensive of meaning as the word 
to vindicate. “You may justify a man of 
an alleged transgression, so as to ward 
off from his person the punishment that 
is annexed to it. In so doing you cer- 
tainly vindicate his innocence. But the 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 


' [SERM. 


office of vindicating may be carried far- 
ther than to this negative performance. 
You may also vindicate a man’s positive 
title to the reward, that is annexed to a — 
particular service, or a particular act of 
laborious obedience and virtue. By the 
one office you prevent the threatened pe- 
nalty from falling upon his head. By 
the other you make clear his title, and 
obtain the investiture of his person with 
the promised reward. 

So that the meaning of the term to jus- 
tify in this verse, deviates in two particu- 
lars from the term in its common and 
general acceptation. In the first place we 
cannot prove any man to have been per- 
sonally clear of those offences, which con- 
stitute him a sinner at the law of God. 
We cannot overturn the fact, of his hay- 
ing been a sinner throughout the whele 
of his past history; and that he is there- 
fore in himself the subject of a righteous 
condemnation. Neither can we overturn 
the fact, of his being a sinner still; and 
that therefore if God were now to set up 
his law with its proclaimed sanctions in 
judgment over him, He, under this exa- 
mination also, would reiterate upon him 
the sentence of condemnation. The whole 
gospel proceeds upon the fact, that in man 
himself there is no righteousness before 
God; and yet it unfolds to us the possibil- 
ity of man being righteously made the 
subject of acceptance and reward. Man 
is not a righteous person; and yet, in 
some way or other, it can be made a just 
thing to treat him asa righteous person— 
not merely a merciful, not merely a ge- 
nerous, not merely a compassionate thing, 
but positively a just thing to admit him 
into the rewards of righteousness. In or- 
dinary language, to justify a man, is to 
make out for him a plea of innocence, 
grounded on the facts of his own person. 
al history ; and when such a plea is made 
out, there is made out along with it a 
right in his favour to have the penalty or 
the chastisement remitted to him. ‘To 
justify a man, in the évangelical sense of 
the term, we cannot possibly make out a 
plea grounded on the_fact of his own per- 
sonal innocence ; but still a plea is found, 
in virtue of which justice requires that he 
should be treated as an innocent person. 
He cannot be so justified, as that it were 
a just thing to say of him—he has acquit- 
ted himself throughout the whole of his 


XXVIII] 


past life, and is now acquitting himself, 
as a holy righteous and innocent person— 
But he can be so justified, as that it should 
become a just thing to treat him, as if he 
ever had been. and still were, a righteous 
holy and innocent person. But while 
we thus advert to the distinction between 
justification in the gospel sense of it, and 
the same term in its common acceptation ; 
let us never at the same time forget, that 
the justification of the gospel is totally 
distinct from a simple ministration of fa- 
vour and forgiveness to the guilty. The 
benefit which a sinner receives, who is 
simply forgiven, is a matter of pure kind- 
ness. ‘The benefit which the same sinner 
receives, in consequence of being justified, 
is a matter of desert. He may not de- 
serve the benefit in his own person. The 
desert may not be hisown. He may not 
have acquired a title to the benefit by any 
self-exertion ; but it is of importance to 
remark that a title, he, in some way or 
other, has gotten. By the gospel, the 
same good-will, and the same happiness, 
which is the fruit of that good-will, are 
conferred upon the sinner, that would 
have been conferred upon him, had he, 
mstead of a sinner, been perfect in all the 
duties and in all the services of loyalty. 
But the great peculiarity of the gospel lies 
in this, that, before it forgives the sinner, 
it, in some way or other, invests him with 
a claim to forgiveness—before it grants 
him a reward, it grants him a right to it. 
There is a something attached to him, 
which renders it a righteous thing for 
God to treat him as a righteous person. 
He obtains remission and reward; but 
not till by being justified, he obtains a 
title to them. Ere the dispensation of 
gospel mercy can take effect, it must be 
made a righteous dispensation ; and it is 
this which constitutes the great peculiari- 
ty of its character—by which both the 
guilty are invested with a title to that 
which they receive, and the Giver dis- 
plays holiness and justice and truth in the 
ministration of His kindness to the guilty. 

And let it further be observed—that. to 
arrive at the evangelical meaning of the 
term justification in its whole extent, we 
must understand it in the fullest sense of 
the word vindication. The man who is 
justified, is not merely in possession of a 
title to have all penalties remitted to him; 
but he is in possession of a title to have 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 








213 


rewards conferred upon him. God not 
only forbears to treat him as a subject of 
condemnation ; but He treats him as a 
subject for the positive distribution of His 
favours. Did the privilege stop short atthe 
making out of a release from punishment, 
the sinner would be delivered from the 
wrath that istocome; but he might ever af- 
terwards remain aa object of indifference 
to the Eternal. But the transition he 
makes by being justified, is far wider than 
this. ‘The man from an object of wrath, 
becomes an object of fatherly affection. 
He is rescued from a fearful looking for 
of judgment; and he becomes an heir, 
an expectant of promise. He obtains 
something more than a deed of acquittal. 
He obtains a deed of wisest and most 
abundant conveyance; and, instead of 
having a midway place assigned to him 
between hell and heaven, the right he ac- 
quires is so comprehensive, as to secure 
for him, by one and the same charter, a 
rescue from the wretchedness of the one, 
and a translation into the bright glories 
and felicities of the other. 

Now it may be thought, that, to change 
the prospect of sinners from a place of 
torment to a place of blessedness anc 
triumph—nothing more is necessary thar 
a simple putting forth of divine tender- 
ness, and a simple manifestation of the 
divine will. But to give these sinners, 
not merely a permission but a right to 
the tree of life—to clear away all the in- 
capacity which attached to their state of 
guilt—to crown with honour the trans- 
gressors of the law, and at the same time 
to magnify the law itself—to vest with the 
title-deeds of afull and finished obedience, 
those, who, from the fulfilment of that 
obedience, had fallen so utterly away— 
to devise for them such a path of trans- 
ference from the one place to the other, 
that mercy could not only lift her song of 
gratulation ; but justice, stern, vindictive, 
incommutable justice, could shield and 
secure their entrance to the city which 
hath foundations—for God to welcome 
them into His own presence, not in the 
capacity of forgiven men in whose behalf 
He had recalled the truth of His own 
denunciations, but in the capacity of justi- 
fied men on whom it was a righteous 
thing to bestow the reward of loyal and 
of rendered services—to turn His throne 
into a throne of grace, and at the same 


214 CONNECTION 


BETWEEN 


FAITH AND PEACE. _SERM, 


time to preserve and to manifest its char-; —when he sends out his mind, as it were, 


acter as a throne of righteousness—T his 
it is which gives its grand peculiarity to 
the dispensation of the gospel, and makes 
it to be both the wisdom of God and the 
power of God. 

Let us now endeavour in the second 
place to explain how it is that we are 
justified by faith. 

We say of a room, that it is lighted by 
the opening up of a window; and yet 
the window only transmits the light, 
which is given out by the Sun in the 
firmament. We say of a human body, 
that it is nourished by the act of eating ; 
and yet by that act, we only take in the 
food which is the cause and the source 
of nourishment. 
of a deed of conveyance which has been 
gratuitously conferred upon him, that, by 
this holding, he possesses a title to certain 
properties ; and yet he neither originated 
the deed, nor drew up the deed, nor 
granted the deed—he simply received the 
deed. And so it is, when we say of a 
man, that he is justified by faith. He 
who is so justified, is in possession of a 
discharge from the penalties of a broken 
law, and of a right to the rewards of an 
honoured and of a fulfilled law. But 
faith did not work out this discharge, 
faith did not establish this right, faith 
barely imports these privileges from the 
quarter in which they are framed ; and 
thus brings them into contact with the 
person of the believer. 

We know, that there is a jealousy 
about this point among theologians, and 
a fear, lest, by assigning too high an 
office to faith, the honour of Christ be in- 
fringed, as the alone author of justifica- 
tion. It is He in fact who achieved the 
whole of this benefit ; and man receives 
of it by the act of believing. Man is not 
in any way the author of this work—he 
only obtains the good of it by giving 
credit to the author. Christ reared the 
foundation—man leans upon it. He 
does no more than is done by the male- 
factor, who holds out his hand to the re- 
prieve which has been made out for him; 
and thus acquires a warrant for his dis- 
charge 


And it will serve still more to exalt the | 


one party, and to annihilate the other, in 
his transaction-—when man sets himself 


n good earnest to the work of believing 


We say of the holder. 








in repeated efforts, to lay hold of the truth 
which is unto salvation ; and as often re- 
tires dejected and baffled by the fruitless 
undertaking—when he wearies himself 
out with diligence and prayer ; and, after 
the tarrying of weeks or months or years, 
still finds that he cannot pluck this pear! — 
of great price from its hiding-place— 

when, instead of creating light for him- 

self, he finds that he must knock for it at 

the door of a sanctuary which he cannot 

open—Should God at length meet this 

inquirer, and shed the powerful demon- 

stration of His Spirit over the doctrine 

he is in quest of—he will not be the man 

who aspires toa share in the glory of his 

own redemption, or counts upon his faith 

as an independent contribution which he 

has brought to the cause. This very 
faith he will acknowledge to be a gift; 

and, like the paralytic who is asked to 

stretch out his hand to an offered alms . 
and receives power along with the offer- 
ing, he, under a sense of nothingness, 
will feel that to himself belongs all the 
gratitude of his deliverance, and to God 
belongs all the glory of it. 

Meanwhile, faith, though neither the 
procuring cause nor the meritorious 
ground of justification, is indispensable 
to it; and just as much so, as the striking 
out of a window is to the lighting of an 
apartment. It is the medium of convey- 
ance, through which God hath ordained 
that all the blessings, purchased and 
wrought for by the Saviour of sinners, 
shall come into contact and appropriation 
with the sinner’s soul. Weare sensible, 
that something like an efficient impor- 
tance is given to faith, by such expres- 
sions as the righteousness of faith, and 
that by faith we are justified— But never is 
it intended, that faith hath wrought out for 
us a righteousness; and only, that it 
affords a passage through which all the 
privileges of a righteousness already pre- 
pared, may be conveyed to the believer. 
A man must believe, ere he can be dealt 
with by God, as if, in the reckoning of 
God, he were a righteous person. But . 
still it is the everlasting righteousness 
which Christ hath brought in, that is so 
reckoned to him. When justification is 
spoken of, the near and the natural ques- 
tion for him who desires to obtain it, is 
—what for this purpose must I person: 


XXVIII] CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. Q45 


alry do, or what must I personally be- 
come? ‘This suggests a competition, not 
between the righteousness of Christ and 
the righteousness of man, but between is no faith at all, if it embrace not the 
one personal condition of man in respect whole testimony of Cod. But the bene- 
either of state or of performance and _ fits annexed to faith are various. ‘There 
another. ‘The question— what shall [| is forgiveness promised to it. There is 
do to be saved?” points the attention of | the plea and the reward of righteousness 
him who offers to resolve it, to an alter-| promised to it. There is strength for 
“native between the efficacy of a man’s| holy obedience promised to it. Now 
doing for this object, and the efficacy of | faith, in the act of bringing home as 
a man’s believing for it. When the | it were each of these benefits, attaches 
whole efficacy is given to the latter, it is | itself at the time to a particular and cor- 
for the purpose of § setting aside altogether | responding portion of the testimony ; and 
the efficacy of the former ; and to decide | what portion of the testimony is that 
for man the interesting question of what|to which faith attaches itself, when, 
that single thing is, which he has per-| through it as a medium of convey: ance, 
sonally to attend to in order to be justified | the privilege of justification comes into 
before God. ‘The question, whether my | the possession of a believer ? 

faith or the work which Christ hath} It is that portion, in which the narra- 
finished is the efficacious principle of my | tive of Christ’s work for our justification 
salvation, presents another alternative,|is laid before us. It is that portion, 
_and there is nothing in the first solution, | which relates to the death and the obedi- 
which ought to darken or to embarrass/ ence of Christ. By the one He offered 
the second. Strangeif man should arro-| Himself up as a propitiation for the sins 
gate a glory to himself, because told to | of the world ; and those of the world who 
do that thing by which in fact the whole | believe in this, have their sins remitted 
glory of his salvation is awarded to ano-| to them. By the other, that is by His 
ther—if the law of faith, the declared | obedience, which comprehends His death, 
effect of which is to exclude boasting, | He fulfilled the righteousness of the law ; 
should be so perversely understood as to | and this righteousness it is testified to us 
encourage it; or if that doctrine should | that He fulfilled in our stead; and the 
go to mar and to divide the glory of | merit of this righteousness is imputed, 
Christ, by which we are led to look to | and the reward of it is assigned unto all, 
Him alone for salvation. and is upon all who believe. 

Your salvation, says St. Paul, is by| There has a distinction been made be- 
grace, and through faith; and not of | tween His passive and His active obedi- 
works lest any man should boast. Were| ence. By the one He is conceived to 
a competition on the question what shall) have expiated sin, by bearing in His own 
man do to be saved, started between) person the punishment which sinners 
man’s faith and man’s works, this apostle | should have borne. By the other He is 
would decide it to be altogether of faith| conceived to have acquired for them 
and not of works. Were it a question, | a righteousness by rendering in His own 
whether does salvation come of God’s| person, that perfect obedience which they 
giving or of man’s believing, and a com-/| should have rendered. Certain it is that 
petition started between grace and faith,| His work is commensurate to the whole 
the apostle would decide that it was by extent of their justification. It accom- 
grace and through faith. Were the! plished for them the remission of the pen- 
question, whether is it God who gives it! alty. It accomplished for them their right 
or man who works for it, and the compe-| to a reward. And the oft-repeated doc- 
tition between grace and works, the apos- | tring of the Bible is, that we obtain this 
tle has bequeathed us his decision upon, right and this remission by faith—that by 
this too in the following memorable sen- faith we are justified—that the righteous- 
tence—“ If br grace hen it isno more of | ness of Christ is unto those who believe 
works ; otherwise grace is ro more;—that it is a righteousness made up 
grace. But if it be of works then it is| of the works of Jesus Christ, and is alto 


no more grace, otherwise work is no 
more work.” 
We now proceed to observe, that faith 














216 


gether separate from any righteousness 
which may be conceived to reside in the 
works of the sinner—and that upon his 
believing, it is not what he hath done for 
himself, but what Christ hath done for 
him, which is imputed unto him for right- 
eousness. 

So that man is accepted into forgive- 
ness and favour, not on account of any 
righteousness of his own—but on the 
righteousness of Christ being put to his 
account ; and it is counted to him on his 
becoming a believer. He stands before 
God in the name of the Lord his right- 
eousness ; and the reward due to this 
righteousness is made his reward. His 
own personal guilt has been laid upon 
Christ ; and on him it has been expiated. 
The merit of Christ is laid upon himself, 
and in himself it is rewarded. His sin 
put to Christ’s account, and Christ’s 
righteousness put to his account, changes 
altogether his relation with the Lawgiver 
whom he had offended. From an heir 
of wrath, he becomes a child of adoption ; 
and, at that point of marvellous transition 
when belief enters in, he is vested with 
all the rights and translated into all 
the privileges of the sons of God. 

And thus all we have said of justifica- 
tion in the general, is confirmed and ap- 
pears in greater distinctness, when we 
come to view the ground of justification. 
A man is justified, but not on the ground 
of anything he deserves in himself. It is 
on the ground of what another has 
wrought for him, and deserved for him. 
He is held to be righteous in respect of 
claim, though he is not righteous in res- 
pect of actual character. It would not be 
true to say of him, that, as he is in him- 
self, he is a righteous person. But it is 
Just on account of the relation that he 
bears to another, to treat him as a right- 
eous person. ‘I'he righteousness, in fact, 
which avails him for being justified, has 
a forensic and not a personal acceptation. 


[t is that by which he is held righteous | 


in Jaw, though not in fact—by which the 
sentence of guilt is taken off, and he is 
discharged from the penalty—by which 
the sentence is utterly converted, and he 
'S invested with a title to the reward. 
And you further see, how this treat- 
ment of the sinner stands distinguished 
altogether, from a simple and direct min- 
istration of kindness to him. 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE, 





It is the | 


[sERM 


kindness of God to him, no doubt; but a 
kindness which feels itself at freedom to 
expatiate, on account of a consideration 
rendered to the justice of God. Mercy 
did not reach in a direct way the accom- 
plishment of her object; though it was 
mercy that instigated the whole of that 
process, by which the object has been 
gained. It was not the deed of mercy 
awake, while other attributes were sleep- 
ing. All of these, if we may so speak, 
were at their post; and all of them gave 
assent to this lofty and mysterious device 
of man’s restoration. So that though his 
salvation be a boon, it is not a simple 
deed of favour and forgiveness which is 
put into his hand. - But it is a deed 
by which a right to favour and forgive- 
ness is conveyed to him, that is put mto 
his hand. Man is not only permitted to 
put up a prayer for these blessings ; but 
he is empowered to put up a plea for 
them. He can appeal for them to the 
truth and the righteousness, as well as to 
the mercy of God—so that God is faith- 
ful and just in forgiving his sins—God is 
just while the justifier of him who beliey- 
eth in Jesus. 

We know that the doctrine of justifi- 
cation by faith, has been charged with an 
injurious effect on the moral character 
of him who embraces it; and were the 
present the place for it, we would 
willingly consent to try it by this, as_ 
a touchstone of its worth. But in the 
meantime we may remark, that acquies- 
cence in this doctrine is the far more 
legitimate fruit of a lofty than of a low 
conception of virtue. He who stands on 
the level of human attainment, and thinks — 
of the law that he has not only reached 
but exceeded its acquirements, will look 
down upon it as exhibiting a humbler 
pattern of excellence than he himself has 
realised ; and, in his bosom, will there 
be the elated feeling that in his own 
strength he is more than conqueror. He 
again who looks on the level of actual 
character as being on the same even plat- 
form with the commandment of God, 
will feel at least that he has gained his 


| object; and neither will he seek to be 


justified by faith. It is the man who 
stands on this level and thinks so sub- 
limely o° the law, that, in order to survey 
it aright, he has to cast his upward eye 
to a light that is inaccessible—it is he 


RXVIIT ] 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE, 


217 


who carries in his mind the purest and| dered to Him by His well-beloved Son, 


the worthiest imagination of rioral recti- 


_ tude—it is he whose view of the standard 


of duty is the most exalted, and whose 
desires after the fulfilment of it are the 
most earnest and aspiring—-he it is, who, 
humbled under a sense of transgression, 
will be most ready to admit the need 


_ of another righteousness than -his own. 


Strange, if a belief, which originates in 
a high sense of virtue, should issue at 
leneth in the subversion of its practice. 
But whether righteousness of life be the 
product of this doctrine or not, we do 
well to remember, that a true conception 
of righteousness, in all its extent, and in 
all its elevation, is the likeliest principle 
for urging us onivards to the adoption of 
such a doctrine ; and, amid all the asper- 
sions it has gotten, as being hostile to the 
cause of morality—let us not forget, that 
he bids fairest to be a disciple of faith, 
who has the keenest perception of mo- 
rality, and he who yields her the pro- 
foundest reverence. 

And we know nothing that flashes 
with more evidence from the Bible, than 
that to be justified by faith is the author- 
ised way of being justified ; and that to 
seek to establish a righteousness of our 
own is called by the apostle a stumbling- 


block ; and that to slight the righteous- 


ness of Christ is not only to refuse the 
offer of the Lawgiver, but to aggravate 
His wrath; and that to attempt a plea of 
merit for ourselves, instead of coming 
unto God in that merit which the Saviour 
hath earned for us, is, in fact, to abandon 
the patent way, and to attempt the king- 
dom of heaven by the prosecution of a 
by-path. Nothing can be more pointedly 
announced than that Christ is the way, 
and that there is no other by which a 
sinner may draw nigh unto God. It is 
a covered way; and the material by 
which the covering is formed is the 
righteousness of Christ, resting by impu- 
tation on the head of the believer. Should 
he try to wrap himself in the merit of 
his own obedience, he will find it too 
frail and too scanty a defence against the 
storm of the coming vengeance ; and the 
only method of turning the fury of God 


into the favour of God, is to appear before 
Him in the faith of that righteousness | ito J 
‘everlasting, when we have the Bible in 


which He Himself hath prepared, with 


which He was well pleased when ren-_ 


28 














‘thing which an inquirer has to do. 


and for the sake of which He is wel’ 
pleased with all those who put their trust 


in Him. ‘They are accepted in the be- 
loved. They are justified in the name of 
Jesus. 


Let us no longer therefore forsake the 
fountain of living waters, and hew out 
unto ourselves broken cisterns which can 
contain no water. Let us set ourselves 
to the work of believing. We know 
that to believe without evidence is im- 
possible ; and that if we could not set 
you on the path where that evidence is to 
be met, to bid you believe were a useless 
and unintelligible prescription. But if 
our evidence for the word lieth in the 
word itself—then, plainly, what you have 
to do, is to give earnest heed unto the 
testimony. Hearken diligently unto me 
says the Lord, and your soui shall live. 
Read diligently the Bible. Bring your 
mind into frequent contact with what 
is written in this book; and it will at 
length evolve itself in its characters, both 
of importance and of truth, upon your un- 
derstanding. Go up unto Jerusalem, 
says Christ, unto His disciples; and 
there will you be endued with light and 
power from on high. Jerusalem was 
the assigned post at which they had 
to wait then, for such a demonstration ; 
and the Bible is the post to which we - 
must repair now, that we may be visited 
by the same demonstration. ‘The man 
who reads, and who prays, and who 
sends forth his mind to the assurances of 
the Bible, and who tries to conceive the 
trueness of them, will at length be met by 
the evidence of the trueness of them. 
The trumpet does not blow an uncertain 
sound, when it calls on you to believe 
and be saved. Even before the light of 
conviction has spread its overpowering 
brilliancy over the truths of Scripture, 
there is a clear definite intelligible some- 
He 
will have ample reason to rejoice after he 
has found the Lord. But there is a way 
to find Him. There isa way of seeking 
Him; and we have a warrant to rejoice 
at its very outset—for let the heart of 


them, says the Psalmist, rejoice, who seek 


the Lord. Let it never be said that we 
are without the means of faith unto life 


tow] 


our hands, and the promise that God will 


» 


218 


light His candle in our hearts. The 
evidence upon which this coming convic- 
tion will turn, it is net for us at present 
particularly to explain. But many is the 
simple cottager, on whose understanding 
it has dawned ; and he has seen the wis- 
dom and authority of God engraven 
on the pages of his Bible; and he has 
recognised His voice in the call which is 
there lifted up to all the ends of the earth, 
to look unto Christ and be saved ; and he 
has perceived, that, as there was no ex- 
ception to the call, he would in fact be 
thwarting the message altogether, did he 
make an exception of himself; and, with 
this warrant for appropriation, he has 
appropriated the general declarations of 
the record to his own special and individ- 
ual behoof; and thus has he entered 
into life, he has believed in Christ his 
righteousness, and according te his belief 
so has it been done unto him. 

‘To encourage you in the work of thus 
seeking after the kingdom of God and 
His righteousness, let us assure you, 
that, from the very first movement of such 
an undertaking, if honestly embarked in 
und steadily pursued, you have your 
well-wishers in heaven. God has no 
pleasure in your death. It were just 
unother triumph to that process of re- 
demption, which he had made known, 
did you come in for a share of its bene- 
fits. Nothing can exceed the welcome 
and the good-will which lie in that call, 
from which there is most assuredly no ex- 
clusion of you. Even though you were 
the chief of sinners, it were just a glori- 
fying of the gospel of Christ, that, by 
your believing it, it became the power 
of God unto your salvation. He pro- 
tests that it is not your destruction He 
wants. It is your deliverance, take Flis 
word for it, that he longs after. And 
now that that deliverance is rendered 
possible, do we see the Creator actually 
courting his creatures to reconciliation. 
For the deliverance might have been 
impossible. In the same sense in which 
it is said of God that He cannot lie, 
might it have been said that God cannot 
take sinners into acceptance. They must 
be vested with a righteousness, ere the 
all-righteous God can admit them in 
peace and favour to his presence. Here 
lay a difficulty, not merely affirmed to be 
so in the schools of Theology, but ac- 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE, 


[SERM. 


tually and substantially felt to be so in 
the counsels of Heaven—not merely 
standing, till it was done away, an unre- 
solyed puzzle in the theory of jurispru- 
dence; but standing, till it was done 
away, an impenetrable barrier of separa- 
tion between God and the guilty. Bu: 
now that a righteousness has been pro 
vided, this wall of partition has been re- 
moved ; and there is nothing but the 
most affectionate urgency on the part of 
God, that man should walk through the 
intervening space which has thus been 
opened for him. ‘The proposal is, tha. 
the sin of his own person should be 
transferred to the person of another, and 
the righteousness of that other should be 
transferred to him. ‘These are the plain 
but weighty terms of a message, which 
is destined te charm our world into con- 
fidence and spiritual life. Whoever shall 
think of the proposal that it is a fiction, 
and a mockery,—he, for himself, shuts 
the door against it; and on him it can- 
not be realised. He who believes it an 
honest proposal shall actually find it so. 
This faith opens an inlet, through which. 
the righteousness of Christ reaches his 
person, and becomes attached to it by 
imputation. He staggers not at the pro 
mise of God because of unbelief. He 
counts Him to be faithful who has pro- 
mised; and God, counting this to him 
for righteousness—by faith he is justi 
fied. 

We now proceed, in the third place, 
to offer our remarks on the connection 
between faith and peace. 

To illustrate this connection, little, we 
apprehend, need be said in the explana- 
tion of these two terms. If I believe the 
sayings of the Bible to be true sayings, I 
have’ faith in the Bible; or I have faith 
in the Author of the Bible. If I believe 
any testimony to be true, I have faith 
either in the subject of the testimony, or 
in the author of it. If I believe a doc- 
trine to be true, | may be either said to 
believe in the doctrine, or to believe in 
him who proposes it. I believe all that 
I find in the Scriptures to be true, or I 
have faith in the Scriptures. One of the 
things I find there, is, that the whole of 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God ; 
and thus for me to believe in Scripture is 
to believe in God. He sent His written 
message to the world; but He employed 


xxvirt] 


= 


a messenger even Jesus Christ, and I be- 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAt.H AND PEACE. 


219 


Now there can be no difficulty in per: 


lieve also in Christ if I believe the say- | ceiving why peace in the first sense of the 


ings of the Bible-to be true sayings. 
‘There are two ways in which the 


phrase peace with God may be under- | 


stood. It may signify that the real hos- 
tility which subsisted between the two 
parties is now at an end; and, in par- 
ticular, that God, the alone party who 
can turn his purposes of hostility into ex- 
ecution, has now ceased to he the enemy 
of man and has become his friend. It 
may denote that the wrath of God to- 
wards man is appeased, and that the for- 
mer is now willing and actually will 
bestow friendship and forgiveness upon 
the latter. Now it is conceivable, that 
this may be the real state of matters be- 
tween God and man, and yet man be 
ignorant that it is so. God may have 
become his friend—and yet he remain 
for some time in dread of God asian ene- 
my. After a negotiation for peace has 
terminated in the accomplishment of it 
between two countries, it may tale 
months before an inhabitant of one of 
these countries comes to know this. 
There may be a real peace between the 
countries, while, in his bosom, there is 
all the restlessness and discomfort of a 
yet unappeased terror. Now the same 
of God. It is certainly conceivable that 
He may have ceased from His purposes 
of vengeance upon man, before that man 
comes to know this—so that there may 
be a real peace between the two parties, 
while, in the bosom of one, there may 
still be the turbid apprehension of God 
as a judge and God as avenger. And 
this suggests a second sense in which the 
term peace may be understood—even that 
peace which arises in a man’s bosom, 
when he ceases from those painful ap- 
prehensions of God’s displeasure, which 
formerly disturbed him. The one de- 
notes the change which has taken place 
in the external relation between the par- 
ties. ‘The other denotes the change 
which has taken place in the mind of 
one of them, when he comes to have a 
view of the new relation into which he 
has been translated. Peace in the one 
way, denotes the event of reconciliation 
on the part of God towards man. Peace 
in the other way, denotes the calm which 
enters into the heart of man, when he is 
visited by a sensé vu. reconciliation. 





term, should stand connected with faith. 
This connection is a matter of God’s own 
appointment. He hath so willed it, that 
if man shall believe in the message which 
He hath sent, He shall cease to view 
man as an object of condemnation. He 
hath devised a scheme of mercy for sin- 
ners; and it hath pleased Him, that 
every sinner, who shall give Him credit 
for all he says about the plan and about 
the execution of it and so confides in its 
efficacy, shall also experience its efficacy. 
It may perhaps be altogether arbitrary 
on the part of God, thus to single out 
faith as the qualifying circumstance on 


\the part of man through which God be- 


comes pacified towards him. Be it so. 
It could not be in the hand of a more 
wise and righteous arbitrator ; and were 
this the place for it, we, narrow and 
darkened as we are in our every view of 
the high matters of eternity, might still 
trace in the rule of proceeding the linea- 
ments of wisdom and of rectitude. And 
if he can see reason, why God should 
cease from His anger towards the man 
who confides in His declarations of good 
will, and of the plan by which He has 
carried it into accomplishment; and so 
should make the specific salvation of 
every individual, to turn on his posses- 
sion of faith—still more may we discern 
a reason and a propriety, why God 


| Should now be so far reconciled to man 





in general, as to hold out salvation to all 
and propose to the world at large the 
overtures of reconciliation. There is 
now made out in behalf of the whole 
species a capacity of salvation; and this 
capacity becomes an actual accomplish- 
ment, in behalf of every one son and 
daughter of the species who believes. 
He who has the faith is justified. He 
who wants the faith has the wrath of 
God abiding on him. Whosoever hath 
the faith is justified, and should all have 
the faith all would be justified. The 
friendship of God is actually conferred 
on those who believe. This friendship 
is put within the reach of all, who have 
within their reach the means of believing 
—the record of the sayings which are to 
be believed—the evidence, which all who 
will to do the will of God, may, upon 
their honest attention, actually find in 


220 CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. [SERM. 


that record; and upon which they ob-| He should be so pacified towards those 
tain the faith that is unto salvation. | who have trampled his law under foot, 
There must be a reason why the benefits | that all its sanctions are withheld from 
of the gospel, should have this special | execution, and the threatened punishment 
direction impressed upon them. ‘There | 1s turned into the proclaimed and the of- 
must be the uttermost wisdom, on the part | fered reward ? How comes it that every 
of God, in selecting this as the condition on | obstacle which formerly existed in the 
which the actual salvation of man turns | Divine bosom, should be now so marvel- 
in every particular case. But there is a | lously cleared away ?—that now there 
still more evident reason, why now there | should be no barrier of separation with 
should be such a disposition on the part} God ?—that He, without let or hindrance 
of God towards man, that salvation is | should now send forth so wide a call of 
largely and universally offered to him— | reconciliation ?—and that the contempt 
that, whether he accepts or not, the invi- | of man who will not listen, the incredu- 
tation’is now given, and may be carried | lity of man who will not believe, form 
round the globe without exception and | now the only resistance which it has to 
without partiality—that a message of | struggle with ? 

peace may now be carried to every door,} __‘T‘his change then in the feeling of the 
and the bearer of the message be only | Divine mind towards sinners, is through 
acting in the spirit of his warranted com-|Jesus Christ our Lord. ‘I'he souls of 
mission, when he urges and entreats| those who believe in Him, are given to 
every man he meets with to entertain it} Him as a reward for His services. The 
—that this embassy from heaven may be | peace which God has entered into with 
made to traverse the face of our earth in | sinners, is through Christ their peace of- 
every conceivable direction, and hold | fering; and the very love which the 
forth its free and generous proposals in| Father bears to the Son, is among the 
every spot of ground on which is reared | number of its guarantees. It is not say- 
a human habitation. There must be a |ingallthat might be said for the strength 
reason why these proposals should be re- | and the sureness of God’s pacific disposi- 
stricted, in their effect and in their ac-|tion towards us, when we say that His 
complishment, only to those who give |truth and justice have now been magni- 
credit to the embassy. But what is the / fied on the person of the Redeemer, and 
cause that there should have been such|that mercy is now free to follow the 
an embassy at all?—that this world of | workings of its own kind and generous 
sinners should have been so kindly and |instigations. It is for the honour of 
so generously dealt with 2—that God, sit- | Christ, as well as for the happiness of 
ting on a throne of judgment, of which | man—it is for the glory and the success 
the stability must be upheld, should thus | of His great undertaking—it is for the 
send forth the overtures of a free and | furtherance of that cause, upon the pros- 
willing acceptance over the whole extent | perity of which His heart is altogether 
of a guilty creation ?—that He who can- | set—it is giving Him in fact of the tra- 
not lie, and who therefore seemed by the | vail of His soul that He may be satisfied 
utterance of His threats and proclama-|that all who have faith in His name 
tions, to put peace with His rebellious|should have salvation by His merits. 
creatures at an irrecoverable distance | God, in holding out the right hand of 
from Him, by laying upon it the burden | reconciliation towards the guilty, is in 
of an impossibility which He Himself | fact rendering to His own righteous ser- 
had framed—that still the movement to- | vant, to the elect in whom His soul de- 
wards this peace should proceed from the | lighteth, the reward of finished and ac- 
holy and inflexible God; and so patent | cepted services. And from that tender 
a way to reconciliation be devised by | but deeply mysterious prayer of the Sa- 
Him, that all who will may have life, | viour— that all who believe in me shal! 
and all who have the belief. which no} be one, even as thou Father art in me 
man can refuse to have without the vio- and I in thee, that they also may be one 
lation of a moral principle, might be re-|in us, I in thee and thou in mé, that ther 
stored to terms of friendship with their ; may be made perfect in one ”—from this 
offended Lawgiver? How comes it that | prayer, may we gather how firm is his 





ee ell 


XXVIII.) 


security, and how intimate is his union 
with the Godhead, who hath fellowship, 
not with the Father only, but with the Fa- 
ther and the Son. 

But there is not merely a connection 
between the faith of the sinner and, the 
e ssation of God’s enmity against him, 
which is the first sense that we have 
given to the term peace. There is also 
u connection between the faith of the 


sinner and a sensation of peace, which | 


thereupon enters into the sinner’s bosom. 
He obtains peace and joy in believing. 
Before he ‘had faith, and if he saw his 
danger aright, he was in a state of dis- 
quietude. After he has faith, and if he 
see aright his new relation with God he 
will be delivered from this state. This 
process however, let it be observed, has 
been actually experienced by many who 
could not perhaps describe the steps of 
the process to others ; and to whom also 
it may be altogether unnecessary,, that 
another should offer any description to 
them. In attempting the explanation of 
this process, we are sensible that we at- 
tempt a task of as difficult management 
on the part of the speaker, and requiring 
as patient and sustained an attention on 
the part of the hearers, as any that we 
have yet entered upon. It is at the same 
time an explanation, the metaphysical 
understanding of which is not essential 
to him, who, under the guidance of the 
Spirit, is made both to abound in faith 
and taste of peace as the fruit of His 
operation. But still it may help to 
evince to those who are without, the ra- 
tionality of Christian experience ; and it 
may even help, not only to comfort and 
confirm those who are within, it may 


also help them the more effectually to ful- 


fil the precept of the apostle, “ be able to 
render unto every one a reason of the 
hope that is in you.” 

And here let us observe, by the way, 
that the meaning of words is often 
darkened by the definitions which are of- 
fered of them. ‘There is a light anda 
simplicity in many a subject, that is some- 
times in danger of being buried under a 
parade of explanation. And we do con- 
fess, that it 1s with some degree of fear- 
fulness we enter upon a topic, which in- 
volves in it some of the nicest and most 


ment. 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH, AND PEACE. 


221 


But on the other hand, we would have 
you to understand, that there may bea 
diseased and exclusive appetite on your 
part, for such views as force an easy and 
immediate conviction on the mind of the 
observer—such views as can be got at 
without any painful, difficult or laborious 
ascent, by the steps of a lengthened in- 
vestigation—such views as, without the 
fatigue of a sustained attention, might 
flash a cheering and a satisfying light 


}upon you by their own brilliancy ; and 








while you are sitting in the posture of 
indolent spectators rather than of atten- 
tive hearers, minister some such cheap 
enjoyment, as the pictures of a moving 
panorama, on which the characters of 
fidelity and loveliness and grandeur 
stand palpably engraven. There is no 
doubt a pleasure, and a very exquisite 
one too, when, from a commanding em1- 
nence, we gain the wide and the mag- 
nificent survey of some rich domain of 
speculation. But it is a pleasure that 
must be purchased by toil. We must 
climb the eminence ; and it is really ex- 
pecting too much from the leader of such 
an intellectual expedition, that he has 
both to force his own way, and to sustain 
the weight of a whole multitude, who 
would like to be dragged, without effort 
on their part, to the summit along with 
him. You must contribute your own 
strenoth in this undertaking. You 
should yield the strenuous co-operation 
of your own attention to it. He cannot 
possibly carry you to all the interesting 
points of survey, without having to cross 
at times the uninviting wild, or to force 
the steep and the winding path of some 
arduous elevation. It is not possible, 
nor would it be right, to strew the whole 
of such a path with blossoms, or to irra- 
diate the whole of it by the glow of a 
rich and attractive colourmg. And you 
are positively in the wrong, if you look 
for delicacies on every step in the way 
of instruction.: It bespeaks you to be 
children, and not men—the possessors of 
a superficial, rather than of a strong 
and hardy understanding,—if, ever on 
the edge after such luxuries as regale 
your taste for poetry, or your taste for 
pathos, you sink down into disappointed 
listlessness, when truth offers herself tc 


-snteresting points of theological argu-| your notice with no other recommenda- 


tion than her own worth, and in no other 


222 


garb than her own sober and unwrought 
livery. 

For the minister to lend himself to 
such an appetite as this, is, in the first 
place, to prostitute the pulpit into a stage ; 
and for the people to be under its domi- 
nioa, is, not merely to indicate how low 
is the place they occupy in the scale of in- 
tellect, but how utterly destitute and de- 
graded is their place in the scale of 
Christianity. ‘There is no practical con- 
viction of sin, when the taste to which 
we have now referred, is the clamorous 
and predominant one. ‘There is no 
earnest seeking after salvation, if he who 
is its messenger, must, to be heard with 
patience, shed a frivolous and a passing 
splendour over the way everlasting. 
We know not, if you have ever tried to 
compute the guilt which may be incurred 
by each of the parties in such a worth- 
less and wretched ministration. Let us 
flee from it, as we would from that com- 
ing wrath, which must be in reserve for 
those, who could thus trifle with eternity, 
and spoil the doctrine of the cross of all 
that effect, which, in its own unaccom- 
panied simplicity belongs to it: Put the 
dangerous propensity in question under 
the severest castigation. Let the weight 
and the value of truth, ever predominate 
Jn your esteem over those attractions, 
which, while they fascinate, may also 
most wofully mislead their tasteful and 
impassioned admirer. You never will 
reach the solid attainments of an intelli- 
gent and well founded Christianity, if 
truth, and truth alone, have not power, 
though stript of all the embellishments 
and all the graces, to compel you around 
her, and bend your willing ear to her 
plain and grave and weighty announce- 
ments. This is the habit to which we 
should like to train you; and a habit to 
which we have our suspicions that some 
of you need to be trained. What we 
want to summon to the bar of instruc- 
tion, is neither your taste, nor your feel- 
Ing, nor your imagination. We want 
to summon your attention. Our exac- 
tions are upon this single faculty ; and 
what we demand is its patient and pro- 
longed waiting on a deliverance, which, 
however prosaic in its terms, is pregnant 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 





[SERM. 


blessedness, and just as lasting in point 
of effect as are your unperishable na- 
tures. What we are feebly attempting 
to deal around us, is the very essence of 
that truth which is unto salvation; and, 
in the words of the Bible, we call upon 
you to stir yourselves up that you may 
lay hold of it ; and that your souls may 
live we call upon you, not merely to 
hearken, but to hearken diligently. 

It will perhaps aid you to understand 
how you should come to have peace, 
when you come to have a belief that the 
sayings of the Bible are true sayings— 
could you conceive one whom you be- 
lieve to be a divine messenger, and call- 
ing himself if you will the Son of God, 
to approach any one of yourselves, and 
enter personally and individually imto 
conversation with you. You are stil, 
we suppose, under the feeling that there 
is not yet a settlement of the controversy 
between God and yourself as a sinner ;. 
and that His Son comes to your door as 
a bearer of good tidings, as a setter forth 
of the way of peace and reconciliation. 
The question is, what are the saymgs 
which we may conceive to be uttered on 
such an occasion—and how do they 
operate in communicating peace of mind 
to him who believes on them? | 

Did this messenger of God tell me, 
that he comes as the bearer of a sure and 
absolute salvation to me and to every one, 
and that all should in point of fact go to 
heaven when they die—we need to offer 
no explanation of the way in which peace 
would enter the heart, at the very mo- 
ment in which the belief of such an an- 
nouncement entered the understanding. 
It is not even necessary to conceive, that 
this communication should be personally 
directed to me by the mouth of a present 
and a living messenger. If there be 
faith, the effect in bringing peace to me 
is quite the same, whether I be told in 
this way of my own particular salvation, 
or whether I read in the Bible that all 
men immediately after death are to be 
translated into a blissful eternity. The 
belief of this saying would necessarily 
involve in it the belief, that I, as being a 
man, as being included in the general 
description of all men, had a sure part in 


‘in its truths with matter, just as impor- | that inheritance which fadeth not away, 
tant in point of value as an existence of | Were such one of the sayings of the 


— XXvut1.] 


Bible, then it follows direct.y from the im- 
port of it, that all who did believe in the 
sayings of the Bible would have peace. 

Jt is unnecessary to observe, that no 
such intimation occurs in the written 
record we have of God’s message to us ; 
and that therefore the supposition of it 
serves no other purpose than that of 
illustration. 

But again, did this messenger state to 
me in oral conference, not that all should 
be saved, but that only some should be 
saved; and that a book of life was kept 
in heaven; and that therein were kept 
the names of all to whom God had or- 
dained a place in heaven: And did he 
further tell me, that my name was writ- 
ten there, then if I believed in his say- 
ing, would I be assured of the prospect 
of blessedness that lay before me, and 
this also wonld be an assurance of peace. 
Or, to shift our supposition from a mes- 
senger to a Bible, if,in that Bible my 
name and my locality and my circum- 
stances and the period of the world at 
which I lived were so specified, as com- 
pletely to identify: my person; and it 
.were said of this person that he was of 
the number who were recorded in the 
book of life—then also would a belief in 
the sayings of the Bible, carry me, by 
an immediate transition, to the peace I 
am in quest of. But in truth, there is no 
such revelation there. There is not one 
individual of our species to whom the 
Bible attaches such a specific mark of 
his personal and particular safety as this. 
The Bible deals in generalities ; and, if 
he is ever to have peace and joy in be- 
lieving, he must gather it out of these 
generalities; and they must be con- 
structed 1m some such way, as to have 
the effect they would have had, had they 
looked particularly towards him, and had 
they carried in them so pointed a direc- 
tion to himself, that, on their basis, he 
can trust in having God for his own 
friend, and an eternal dwelling place 
with God for his own inheritance. 

It is true that the Bible does tell us 
something of the book of life. It tells us 
that the names of all who after death are 
to be translated into the realms of ever- 
lasting security are written there. It 
tells us that there are names, but it does 
not tell us which names. Here then is 
an example, in which it would be possi- 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 


228 


ble to have faith without having peace. 
Did a messenger from God just tell me 
thus much—just tell me that some were 
to be saved, and that there was a list of 
them in heaven, but forbear to satisfy my 
painful desire of knowing whether my 
‘name had been inserted in the list, 1 
might perceive in all this a chance of 
salvation ; but the uncertainty of it would 
continue to adhere to me on this side of 
death. I might thoroughly believe his 
announcement as far as it goes; and yet 
not be at rest. Or if, instead of being an 
intimation to me from a living messen- 
ger, it were an intimation of the Bible to 
all the readers of this book ; and were it 
the only intimation from which we were 
left to gather hope to ourselves, all men 
might have faith and yet no man have 
peace. I cannot ascend to heaven while 
in the body, and there examine the con- 
tents of the book of my destiny. This 
mighty secret lies in a book that is far 
off, and to me inaccessible; and thus 
might I have entire faith in all the say- 
ings of the word that is nigh, and yet 
live out the whole of my time in the 
world in a state of fearful agitation. 

But again, let the messenger talk with 
me, and inform me that though that sal- 
vation, the tidings of which he bore, 
would only be realised by a particular 
number of the species—yet he had a 
more satisfying indication to offer than 
the mere circumstance of their enrolment 
ina record that was invisible, and that 
all who were so destined had a visible 
mark each on his own forehead. I may 
have faith in this announcement too ; 
and could I only ascertain by self-mspec- 
tion the existence of the mark in ques- 
tion, I would no sooner have the faith 
than I would have the peace along with 
it. But had I no such mark, then my 
faith, instead of being the harbinger of 
my peace, would be to me the harbinger 
of despair. So that if, instead of being 
the statement of a messenger it were the 
statement of a Bible, all men might be- 
lieve in it, and yet only those men be at 
peace who were in possession of the 
mark—while the others who had equal 
faith, but were destitute of the mark, 
would be reduced by their faith to a stat 
of utter despondency. : 

Were the first then the only announce- 
‘ment in the Bible respecting the future 








224 


condition of man, viz., that forgiveness 
and favour were granted to all without 
exception—all who had faith would have 
peace. Were the second the only an- 
nouncement, viz., that there were favour 
and forgiveness for a particular number 
whose names were written in a book that 
was inaccessible, all might have faith and 
yet none have peace. Were the third 
the announcement, viz., that favour and 
forgiveness were only to those who were 
in possession of a certain palpable mark 
upon their foreheads that could be in- 
stantly ascertained, all men might have 
faith—both those who had the mark and 
those who wanted it; and yet this faith 
would bring despair to the latter, and 
peace only to the former. Settled peace 
would only be the portion of the one 
class and as settled despair the portion of 
the other class. 

Let us now suppose, that the mark in 
question, instead of being of so palpable 
and so discoverable a sort as a visible 
impression on the forehead, lay deeper 
and more difficult of access within the 
recesses perhaps of a man’s mind and a 
man’s character. In this case, there 
nught be no peace till the mark was as- 
certained ; and the peace might be long 
of coming, if it came as the result of an 
anxious and laborious examination. If 
the mark be not such as to obtrude itself 
upon the discernment at a single glance, 
this might delay the attainment of the 
peace after which we are aspiring. It 
may be easy to perceive by the organ of 
the eye, that which is situated without us. 
It is not so easy, in general to perceive 
by the organ of consciousness, that which 
is situated within us—to make a survey 
of all the objects which lie in the hidden 


province that comes under the recognition | 


of this faculty ; and there to take account 
of such a desire, or such an affection, or 
such a principle, as that, on the assured 
possession of it, we inay -be assured of a 
destiny of bliss being in reserve for us. 
Now in none of these ways have 
we yet unfolded, either what the chief 
and at the same time most comprehensive 
saying of the Bible is upon this matter, 
or how the peace of a sinner’s mind 
stands connected with the act of his 
believing it. ‘The Bible does not pro- 
claim absolute forgiveness and felicity to 
all men—so that the transition from faith 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 








[SERM. 


to peace is not just so direct and obvious, 
as under the first supposition. It does 
proclaim this for a particular number; 
and it tells us also that their names are 
written in the book of life, though it 
no where specifies the names—so that as 
under the second suppesition, were there 
no other announcement on the subject, all 
might believe and yet all might remain 
in a state of disquietude. And it also as 
signs marks by which the children of the 
kingdom might be distinguished even in 
this life—though these marks be not gen- 
erally of so palpable a sort, as that they 
can be seized with the same promptness 
and facility, with which the eye is arrest- 
ed by something externally and immedi 
ately visible. And therefore to come a 
the thorough assurance of having such 
matks—it might be necessary to institute 
a lengthened and laborious process of 
selfexamination. And here the circum- 
stance which offers itself, in proof that we 
have not yet by any of our suppositions. 
got into a precise accordancy with the 
Bible, is, that, under none of them have 
we yet assigned such sayings as have 
precisely the same influence with the. 
Bible in pacifying a sinner’s bosom. In 
none of them would belief have the same 
effect upon peace, that a belief of Scrip- 
ture has. For while, on the one hand, 
there are marks specified in the Bible, 
by which the children of the kingdom 
are distinguished from the children of 
this world—there are, on the other hand, 
sayings in the Bible, the belief of which, 
antecedent to all self-examination, brings 
an instantaneous peace and joy along 
with them. There are tidings which 
are there called tidings of great joy ; and 
when is it, one would think, that the joy 
should be felt but just when the tidings. 
are believed? ‘They positively would 
not deserve the name of glad tidings, un- 
less they gladdened our hearts at the mo- 
ment of our putting faith in them ; and, 
accordingly, we read, both of the first 
and of the latter Christians in all ages, 
how often their peace came immediately 
in the train of their faith—how they had 
peace and joy in believing—how as soon 
as the word of the testimony dawned 
with credit upon their understanding, so 
soon did it prove itself a peace-speaking 
testimony, and. that by a tranquillizing 
influence which it brought at the very 


_XXviu.j 


moment into their hearts—So that there 
must be a something in the communica- 
tions of this book, which, if rightly un- 
derstood, must, when believed, bring 
peace immediately along with it. And 
yet in this very book we are called upon 
to prove ourselves, and to work out our 
own salvation with fear and trembling, 
und to take heed lest we fall, and to 
labour that we may obtain full assurance, 
aud to count not that we have yet attain- 
ed. And while, on the one hand, the 
first converts did at the very outset re- 
ceive the word with gladness—they, on 
the other hand, were taught to look upon 
their salvation as a point at issue, as a 
matter in dependence, as the reward of a 
race that had yet to be run, as the prize 
of-a victorious contest that had not yet 
been carried to its termination: And thus, 
while the peace of God ruled in their 
hearts, their prospect of eternal life did 
not lie before them in such full characters 
of certainty, but that it admitted of being 
Bee nd. into a still more cheering 
hope, and confirmed into a still higher 
and more steadfast degree of assurance. 

So that there is both a peace felt by the 
believer, when he looks to the truth that 
is without him in the Bible ; and yet that 
Bible refers his attention to a mark that 
is within him upon his own heart. The 
word and the testimony of Christ, at the 
first drop peace upon him. Marks which 
by the work of Christ are impressed on 
the believer's person, afterwards reflect 
peace upon him. There is peace at the 
outset, if he believe what he is told about 
salvation ; and yet it is a peace which 
admits of being confirmed afterwards— 
just asif his salvation were still a matter 
of doubt and a matter of dependence. 
There is something peculiar surely in the 
sayings of the Bible, about this whole 
matter of a sinner’s hopes—a something 
which distinguishes the whole sum of 
these sayings, from any of the single sup- 
positions that we have yet come forward 
with—a something which brings to one 
these apparent inconsistencies, and turns 
that which looks a foolishness and a mys- 
tery to the eye of the world to be indeed 
the wisdom of God for the world’s sal- 
vation. 

Were we called upon then to assign 
the most compendious, and at the same 
time the most frequently reiterated saying 

29 


apa ce eens acct ii ct tte scat at teens aaa ee 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 


of the Bible about the salvation of man, 
we would fix upon that statement of con- 
stant occurrence in its pages, that it is he 
who believeth that shall be saved. It is 
like as if the messenger whom we have 
already quoted, should come to my door 
and offer salvation to me simply upon my 
giving credit to him. It is not an abso- 
lute offer of salvation as under the first 
supposition. It is not the bare announce- 
ment of a chance for salvation, which 
could never be ascertained on this side 
of death, because the certainty of it was 
onlv recorded in a book of names tha. 
was inaccessible. It is not the assurance 
of salvation to me, on the possession of a 
mark that stands visibly engraven on my 
forehead, which if I have, I in my belief 
of such a message shall have peace ; 
and, if I have not, I shall on the very 
same belief be plunged into despair. 
Neither is it such an assurance of salva- 
tion or any other more latent mark, as to 
make me feel that the first thing I have 
to do is to look inwardly upon myself, 
and there institute a metaphysical search 
into the arcana of my heart and of my 
character. The intimation is that if I 
believe J shall be saved. The peculiarity 
lieth here, that the messenger makes my 
salvation to turn upon my faith in his 
statemeuts—makes it to turn on posses- 
sion of a personal attribute certainly, or 
if you will a personal mark—such a 
mark as has its residence within me, and 
to find and ascertain the existence or 
which I must look inwardly ; but at the 
same time such a mark, as neither 1 nor 
any man can possibly acquire, but by 
first looking outwardly. I cannot believe 
in any affirmation, till I have looked ‘o 
the matter of that affirmation. IJ cannot 
have faith in the statements of the mes- 
senger till I have considered his state- 
ments. It is true that to believe is a per- 
sonal act; but it is the act of a mind 
sending itself forth, and busying itself 
among the things to be believed. It is 
true that faith, just like affection, or prin- 
ciple, or desire is a personal accomplish- 
ment. But it is an accomplishment 
stamped upon my person, by an influence 
emanating from that which is without ; 
and it is by the direction of my mental 
eye to the object without, that I keep the 
avenue open for the transmission of this 
influence. Though it be on the posses. 


2526 


sion of a personal accomplishment— 
thouch it be on myself that faith hath its 
standing-place, and it be on the possession 
of faith in the statements of a messenger 
calling himself divine that my salvation 
is made to turn—it were altogether pre- 
posterous on that account, to look first 
away from the statements with the view 
of looking inwardly and downwardly 
upon myself. It were just as preposterous, 
as if some benefit were to accrue on my 
obtaining a sight of the sun in the firma- 
ment, I should, instead of looking out- 
wardly toward him, endeavour to search 
for the image that he has impressed of 
himself upon the retina of my eye. Was 
it upon some other speciality of my un- 
derstanding or of my character than faith, 
that the Bible made my eternal felicity to 
hang—lI should instantly have felt my- 
self committed to a process of self-exam- 
ination. I should have looked inwardly 
upon myself. 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 


But when it comes forth | 


[SERM. 


the felt concern of every one of us, is how 
to attain the faith ; and, for this purpose, 
there is not a more likely or suitable atti- 
tude of the mind than an earnest contem- 
plation of the objects of faith. 

In endeavouring to trace the connec- 
tion between faith and peace, let us re- 
mark, that, had the saying to be believed 
been that our salvation turned on our 
possession of some personal property dis- 
tinct from faith and independent of it— 
then if we believed this saying, would 
we have gone instantly in search of this 
property, and explored the map of our 
own persons. But when the personal 
property which is unto salvation is just 
the very faith itself, then our possession 
of it may be indicated in two ways— 
either by the liveliness of its own exer- 
cise, or by the existence of other personal 
marks which it works upon the character 
by its own influence and operation. In 
both these cases, the connection between 


with the primary declaration, that we are| faith and peace is brought about, by our 


saved by faith in its own statements—this 
draws the attention of the mind to those 
statements, and we are led to look out- 
wardly upon our Bibles. ‘The only con- 
ceivable way in which we can obtain a 
belief of any truth, is by turning the eye 
of the mind towards the truth and its ac- 
companying evidence. So that the truths 
of the Bible are among the first things 
with which a secker after God, who is 
in the direct way of salvation, feels him- 
self engaged. Were he bidden look to 
some external object so that he may ob- 
tain the sight of it and be saved, the eye 
of his body would be directed towards 
that object and not towards his own per- 
son. And were he bidden give earnest 
heed to the word of God’s testimony so 
that he may obtain the belief of it and be 
saved, would the eye of his mind be di- 
rected towards the things contained in 
this book. It is there repeatedly said that 
faith is competent to the entire salvation 
cf every one who possesses it. If there 
ever should then be any other marks in- 
sisted on, these must be subordinate to 
faith—for faith, if competent to salvation, 
must be competent to the formation upon 
the person of every such mark as is in- 
dispensable to salvation. So that in every 
view of it, believing comes upon us with 


being made conscious that we have faith 
—conscious that we have that within us 
or about us which ensures salvation. 
But still if faith be only known by its 
exercises, it must be in exercise before 
we are conscious of it—or if it can be 
only known by its fruits, it must have 
had enough of time and enough of oper- 
ation to produce these fruits, ere we can — 
infer the existence of it. So that ere 
peace can be derived from the conscious- 
ness that we have faith—faith is in actual 
operation ; the mind is in contact with 
the truths of the Bible; the inquirer is 
exploring the map of revelation; he is 
contemplating objects that are without 
him, and he believes their reality. He 
must look outwardly, before, through the 
medium of consciousness, he can gather 
any peace in connection with faith by 
looking inwardly. 

What we affirm is, that such are the 
truths of the Christian revelation, that, in 
the single act of looking outwardly upon 
them, there is a peace which enters mto 
the looker’s mind along with his faith 
There is a peace in the bare exercise of 
believing. The truths themselves are 
fitted to convey peace into the heart, at 
the very moment that they are recognised 
to be truths Even were it possible to 


all the urgency of the first matter on| believe without the consciousness of be- 


hand. 


The great, and what ought to be| lieving, such are the intimations of' the 


& vi] 


gospel, that a single perception of the 
trueness of them (a single reliance upon 
the faithfulness of these intimations) is 
enough of itself to send a tranquillizing 
influence into the sinner’s bosom. Con- 
sciousness may afterwards suggest to me 
that fam a believer. The faith which 
has taken possession of my mind, may 
there work the influences upon my 
heart and character which are ascribed 
to this principle in the New ‘T'estament ; 
and, from the fruit of these influences 
may I gather the existence within me of 
the real faith of the New Testament. I 
may then couple this discovery with the 
assurance, that the privileges of the gos- 
pel are unto all and upon all who be- 
lieve; and may thus come at peace 
through the medium of a process of self- 
reflection and self-examination. This is 
a possible—nay this is a legitimate—nay 
this is a prescribed exercise with every 
disciple of Christ. But still the peace 
which is thus come at, is but the con- 
firmation of a peace which is already ar- 
rived at previously. It is not then that 
an makes its first entrance into the 

eart—nor ‘is it the introduction of a new 
feeling which takes place at this time; 
but only the ratification and the estab- 
lishment of an old feeling. There was 
@ peace conceived in the sinner’s heart, 
along with the delivery of the message 
of the gospel, so soon as that. message 
was understood in the terms of it and dis- 
cerned in the trueness of it; and, just as 
upon the utterance of any. other good 
news, a joy will be felt at the moment of 
their utterance barely upon their being 
believed and though there be no reflex 
consciousness of believing—so were the 
good news of the gospel fitted in the days 
of the apostles, and are they fitted still, to 
send an instantaneous peace into the 
bosom, and that solely on the perception 
that we have of its being a true and a 
creditable message. 

For should the bearer of such a mes- 
sage come to my door, and tell me, that 
God carries to me individually such a 
good-will in Fiis heart as to have no plea- 


CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. 


227 


by his mouth God beseeches me to be re- 
conciled—will there no peace and joy 
flow direct from my faith in this commu- 
nication? We want not to embarrass 
you by the metaphysics of any unseen and 
inward principle whatever. But should 
a powerful and offended neighbour, send 
his own son to me with the intelligence, 
that he has now obtained by the hands ot 
an interposing friend an ample satisfae- 
tion for all the wrongs I ever inflicted on 
him, and is now ready to take me into 
friendship—is there any thing metaphys- 
ical or embarrassing in our discernment 
of that process, by which a simple feel- 
ing of deliverance from fear will come 
immediately in the train of a simple be- 
lief in this intelligence. And sinner as I 
am, deeply as [ have revolted against the 
Lawgiver in heaven, inflexible as His 
justice is and awful as is the power of His 
anger—lI only need to be told that God is 
pacified by the blood of an all sufficient 
propitiation, and to believe in what 1 am 
told that I may be pacified from my fears 
of the coming vengeancem Let me on 
believe what I am told of the Son of God, 
and I will no longer be afraid. Let me 
know it to be a truth, that my salvation 
is an object which His heart is set upon— 
that He bore the pains of death, in order 
to accomplish it—that from the place of 
glory where He now sits, He casts a 
longing regard towards me, and that 
every look and every wish which I heave 
towards Him is met by the merciful High 
Priest of the human race, witha respond- 
ing welcome—that He is able, and just 
as willing as He is able to save to the ut- 
termost—that He knocks at the door of 
my heart, and that all which He wants 
and is honestly desirous of there, is to be 
admitted into confidence—that He offers 
methe redemption which He hath achiev- 
ed for many, and not only backs the offer 
with the invitation of His Father but with 
the commandment of His Father that |} 
should accept of it—Let me only conceive 
that these are so many steps of an authen- 
tic transaction in behalf of the world, and 
in behalf of me as one of the world’s in- 


_ sure whatever in my death—what else | habitatants ; and there is not the distance 
gan it require than a simple faith in such | of a single link, between my belief in all 
a statement, to be gladdened and tranquil-|this, and the peace of deliverance the 
lized by it? Or should he call himself | peace of joy the peace of expectation 
an ambassador from God, and say that! which emerges from it. 2 


\ 


228 | 


ANALOGIES BETWEEN NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HUSBANDRY. 


SERM. 


SERMON XXIX. 


On the Analogies which obtain between the Natural and the Spiritual 
Husbandry. 


“And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and 
should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not 
how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the 


full corn in the ear. 


But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, 


because the harvest is come.”—Mark iv. 26—29. 


A man may be qualified for practically 
carrying forward a process, of whose hid- 
den steps, and of whose internal work- 
ings, he is most profoundly ignorant. 
This is true in manufactures. It is true 
in the business of agriculture. And it 
holds eminently true in the business of 
education. How many are the efficient 
artisans, for example, in whose hands 
you may at all times count on a right 
and prosperous result; but who are utter- 
ly in the dark, as to the principles of that 
chemistry in their respective arts, by the 
operation of which the result is arrived 
at. And how many a ploughman, who 
knows best how to prepare the ground, 
and who knows best how to deposit the 
seed for the object of a coming harvest ; 
and yet, if questioned upon the arcana of 
physiology, or of those secret and inter- 
mediate changes by which the grain in 
the progress of vegetable growth is trans- 
formed into a complete plant ripened and 
ready for the use of man, would reply in 
the language of my text, that he knoweth 
not how. And in like manner, there is 
many a vigorous and successful educa- 
tionist, who does come at the result of 
good scholarship, whether in Christianity 
or in common learning—and that without 
ever theorizing on the latent and element- 
ary principles ‘of the subject, upon which 
he operates—without so much as casting 
one glance at the science of metaphysics, 
a science more ‘inscrutable still than that 
of physiology; and which, by probing 
into the mysteries of the human spirit, 
would fain discover how it is that a truth 
is first deposited there by communication, 
and then takes root in the memory, and 
then warnis into an impression, and then 
forms’ into -¥‘sentiment, and then ripens 
into a purpose, and then comes out to vi- 


sible observation in an effect or a deed or 
a habit of actual performance. There 
are thousands, who, in the language of 
our text, know not how all this comes 
about; and yet have in point of fact and 
of real business, set the process effective- 
ly agoing. We are not sure indeed if 
our mental philosophers have done much, 
or if they have done any thing to guide 
or to enlighten the methods of practical 
education ; and for this, we should cer- 
tainly have less confidence in the philoso- 
phy of those speculative men who can 
expatiate on man’s internal constitution, 
and talk of associations and remembrances 
and laws of primary or secondary sug- 
gestion—than we should have in the 
home-bred sagacity of those operative 
men, who have put forth their hand to the 
employment, and Jaboured for years in 
the business of schools or of parishes. 

The phrase of the “ kingdom of Hea- 
ven’ in our parable, possesses the same 
significancy, which it has in those passa- » 
ges where it is said, that the “kingdom of 
Heaven cometh not with observation” and 
“the kingdom of Heaven is within you.” 
The kingdom of Heaven, in all these 
places, meaneth the reign of Heaven's 
principles over the heart of man. Let the 
word of God be addressed to him, and 
come home to his heart with a deep sense 
of its truth and obligation—this is the 
good seed taking firm root in it. Let his 
faith in the word be genuine, and have its 
genuine effect on his character and walk— 
this is the good seed yielding in abund- 
ance the fruit of righteousness. And thus 
it is, that, while in one parable, a teacher 
of the word is compared to a sower—in 
the parable before us, its train of influen- 
ces upon the taught is compared to a pro- 
cess of vegetation. 


xxIx.] 


We. cannot afford, at present, to trace 
all the analogies, which obtain between a 
plant from the germination of its seed, 
and a Christian from the infancy of his 
first principles. We shall in the first 
place confine ourselves to one or two of 
these analogies ; and secondly endeavour 
to show, how some of what may be called 
the larger operations of Christian philan- 
thropy, admit of having a certain mea- 
sure of light thrown upon them, by the 
comparison which is laid before us in 
this parable, between the work of a teach- 
er and the work of a husbandman. 

First then, in the agricultural process, 
there is much that is left to be done by 
Nature, and in a way that the workman 
knoweth not how; nor is it at all neces- 
sary that he should. He puts forth his 
hand, and sets a mechanism agoing— 
the principles of which, he, with his head, 
is wholly unable to comprehend. The 
doing of his part is indispensable, but his 
knowledge of the way in which Nature 
doeth her part is not indispensable. And 
accordingly, after he hath sown, he ma 
go to sleep if he chooses. He hath done 
the palpable work, and he wisely meddles 
not with the profound speculation. The 
casting of the seed into the ground was 
his concern. The bringing forth of the 
fruit was what the earth did of herself; 
and by the operation of a physiology 
which he neither comprehends nor cares 
for, a harvest produce is given to him as 
the return of his exertions. 

Now it is even so in the work of spirit- 
ual husbandry. There is an obvious 
part of it, that is done by the agency of 
man; and there is a hidden part of it, 
which is independent of that agency. The 
first part may well be done by a man, 
who is free of all that ambitious curiosity, 
that might have led him to pry into the 
mysteries of thesecond. Were this right- 
ly attended to, it might save both parents 
and teachers, a deal of misplaced, and even 
mischievous anxiety. What more settled 
and reposing than the faith which a hus- 
bandman has in the constancy of Nature. 
He knows not how it is; but, on the 
strength of a gross and general experi- 
ence, he knows that so it is. And it were 
well in a Christian teacher to imitate this 
confidence. There is in it, both the wis- 
dom of experience, and the sublime wis- 
dom of piety. He plants and he waters, 


ANALOGIES BETWEEN NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HUSBANDRY. 


229 


and he goes through all'the human work 
of the spiritual husbandry ; and then, he 
should commit it quietly and confidingly, 
to Him who giveth the increase. He 
should not meddle with matters too high 
for him; and, on the principle of not at- 
tempting to be wise beyond the obvious 
lessons of Scripture or observation, he 
should cease his inquiries at the right 
point, and save himself from all the per- 
plexities of restless and ungovernable 
speculation. There is great comfort in 
this exercise of faith; and, what is more, 
we promise it great efficacy. Be stead- 
fast and immoveable, and always abound- 
ing in your proper work, God will not 
be wanting to His. There is no danger, 
either of the processes of Nature, or the 
processes of grace being suspended, be- 
cause we have not been able to lift the 
veil, which shrouds them from the eye of 
our intelligence. We have nothing to 
do, but to make right and conscicntious 
use of the instruments which have been 
put into our hand; and to rest assured, 
that, if we labour in the Lord, our labour 
shall not be in vain. 

But.again—it is the work of the hus- 
bandman to cast the seed into the ground. 
It is not his work to manufacture the 
seed. This were wholly above him and 
beyond him. The seed is provided for 
him by a higher hand; and all that lies 
upon him is the practicable task of 
putting it into the ground, and following 
his judgment in suiting the various kinds 
of seed to the various soils and various 
preparations. 

In like manner, to excogitate and to 
systematize the truths which we are after- 
wards to deposit in the minds of those 
who are submitted to our instruction, 
were a task beyond the faculties of man. 


These truths, therefore, are provided to 


his hand. What his eye could not see, 
nor his ear hear, has been brought within 
his reach by a communication from hea- 
ven; and to him nothing is left, but a 
simple acquiescence in his Bible, and a 
faithful exposition of it. 

Our writers upon education may have 
done something. They may have scat- 
tered a few superficial elegances over the 
face of society ; and taught the lovely 
daughters of accomplishment how to walk 
in gracefulness their little hour, over a 
paltry and perishable scene. But it is 


: 


230 


only in as far as they deal in the truths 
-and lessons of the Bible, that they rear 
any plants for heaven; or can carry for- 
ward a single pupil to ‘the bloom and the 
vigour of immortality. Ah, how much 
has this Bible simplified the work of re- 
ligious edueation. It leaves me nothing, 
but to sit like a litle child to the lesson 
that is set before me; and to convey it 
with simplicity and clearness, to the other 
children who stand in need of it. We 
may now give to the wind all our self- 
formed demonstrations; and for the fa- 
tigne and harassment of all former un- 
certainties, we have nothing to feel but a 
reposing confidence in the efficacy of the 
word, and nothing to do but to enter vig- 
orously and without suspicion on the 
work of depositing it. 

And as we have not to manufacture a 
seed for the operations of our spiritual 
husbandry—so neither have we to mend 
it. It is not fit that the wisdom of God, 
should thus be intermeddled with by the 
wisdom of man. It is utterly incompe- 
tent for us, to throw aside any part of His 


revealed andisel as matter of unfit or 


dangerous communication; and it were 
putting forth a sacrilegious hand, did we 
offer to purify it, of what we choose to 
imagine a doubtful and deleterions i ingre- 
dient. This must be kept back from our 
pupils, lest it leads to Antinomianism! 
That other must be kept back too. lest 
it unsettles their orthodoxy! Why, if we 
may not come absolutely forward with 
the Bible and the whole Bible, we are 
just where we were. If we can do 
nothing in the way of making a doctrine 
for ourselves, surely we do worse than 
nothing when we mutilate or modify the 
doctrine which has come down to us 
from heaven. If we are for ever to be 
qualifying and mending from the fear of 
consequences, then we are out at sea 
again, and in as harassing uncertainty as 
before : and the business of education is 
left to the wayvardness of our gratuitous 
and ever-varying decisions. There is no 
other way of helping ourselves out of 
this dificulty, than just to bind over our 
whole understanding to our whole Bible. 
We dispute not the talent and genius of 
many, who, in the attempt of skilfully 
adapting the doctrine of Scripture to the 
mind of the scholar, have only made la- 
borious deviations from the simplicity 


ANALOGIES BETWEEN NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HUSBANDRY, 





[SERM 


that is in Christ. But the man who 
spares himself all their work of ingenu- 
ity, or is even incapable of it, is better 
qualified for the business of religious ed- 
ucation than they. He takes up the Bi- 
ble fearlessly as he finds it His single 
aim is to understand it, and to make it un- 
derstood ; and he brings a simple and a 
sincere mind to a simple exercise. 

But again—we do not lose sight of the 
ann logy which there i is, between ‘the work 
of a spiritual and that of a natural hus- 
bandman—when, after having affirmed 
the indispensableness of casting into the 
ground of the human heart the pure and 
the simple word, we further affirm the 
indispensableness and the efficacy of 
prayer. Even after that, in the business 
of agriculture, man hath performed his 
handiwork, by depositing the seed in the 
earth—he should acknowledge the handi- 
work of God, in those high and hidden 
processes, whether of the atmosphere 
above or of the vegetable kingdom below, 
which he can neither control nor compre- 
hend. By the work of diligence which 
he does with his hand, he fulfils man’s 
parts of the operation. By the prayer 
of dependence which arises from his 
heart, he does homage and recognition to 
God’s part of it. And we are not to im- 
agine that praver is without effect, even 
in the processes of the natural economy. 
The same God who framed and who or- 
ganized our great mundane system, has 
never so left it to the play and the im- 
pulses of its own mechanism, as to have 
resigned even for one moment that mas- 
tery over it which belongs to Him; but 
He knows when to give that mysterious 
touch, by which He both answers prayer, 
and disturbs not the harmony of the uni- 
verse which he has formed. He knows 
how to make nature subservientto prayer, 
and that without invading the constancy 
of any of her visible successions; and 
thongh the eye of the most vigilant ex- 
perimentalist, should never once detect 
any law or principle of meteorology, to 
have been traversed by a special inter- 
ference of the Deity—-yet He neverthe- 
less overrules all the changes of that 
fitful and fluctuating weather, on which 
all the hopes of the year are suspended : 
and the prayers of the husbandman for 
the earlier and the latter rains, for a sea 
son that might secure the ripenings of 


_ KXIX. | | 


productive, and a season that might se- 
cure the ingatherings of a safe and pros- 
perous harvest, do not rise in vain to that 
place where sitteth the Guide and the 


Governor of our world. 


But it is in the world of mind, more 
than in that of matter, that the efficacy 
of prayer is realised. It is in those pro- 


cesses of the spiritual economy, when 
the mind of the creature reciprocates 
with the mind of the eternal Creator ; 
and when the one, all athirst for the sup- 
plies of a refreshing and renovating 
grace, brings down a shower of liv- 
ing water out of the other’s inexhausti- 
ble fulness. That is the prayer to which 
the ear of Heaven is more especially 
open, and which He whositteth upon its 
throne most rejoices to meet and to sa- 
tisfy. It is when man aspires upwards 
after fellowship with God, and looks and 
longs for the communication of light and 
of power from the sanctuary—it is then 
that God looks with fondest complacency 
upon man, and lets willingly downward 
all the treasures of grace upon his soul. 
He draws near unto those who draw 
near unto Him. It has been said of 
prayer, that it moves Him who moves 
the universe; and it is in the uni- 
verse of spirit, that this saying has 
its chief and most emphatic fulfilment— 
among those busy interchanges, of de- 
pendence on the one hand, and good 
will upon the other, which take place 
between the great Parent Spirit, and all 
those derived or subordinate spirits who 
constitute the members of His immortal 
family. It is thus that prayer is an or- 
gan of such mighty avail, towards the 
prosperity and the extension of Christ’s 
Church upon earth; and that whether in 
the shape of a direct supplication for our 
own souls, or of benevolent intercession 
for the souls of others—insomuch that 
the first preachers of the gospel, in the 
conduct of their spiritual husbandry, 
though busied to the uttermost in the 
work of casting the seed, gave an equal 
and co-ordinate importance to the work 
of prayer for a blessing thereupon. 
“ But we will give ourselves continually 
to prayer and to the ministry of the 
word.” , 

- And here a beautiful analogy suggests 
itself between the natural and the spiri- 
tual husbandry, which serves to confirm 


ANALOGIES BETWEEN NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL. HUSBANDRY. 


tions of the Bible. 





231 
by one illustration more, a doctrine that 
cannot be too often propounded to the 
view of Christians. It is said of Elisha, 
that when he prayed, the heaven gave 
rain and the earth brought forth her 
fruit. Now we venture to affirm of all 
the plenty which was thus brought forth, 
that not one atom of it was produced, 
which did not spring up from the seed 
that was previously in the ground. Of 
all the stems in that luxuriant vegetation 
which was given to Elisha’s prayers, not 
one of them we will say grew without a 
root, but each of them from a root. 
The crop which was made to cover 
the fields of Israel, was not a crop 
without seed, but a crop from seed. Such 
a miracle might have been wrought, as, 
without either rain or seed, could have 
made a boundless fertility to wave all 
over the land. But this was not the mi- 
racle which followed on the intercession 
of the prophet. It neither dispensed 
with seed, nor rain; but brought down 
the one from heaven for the purpose of 
fructifying the other that lay waiting for 
it under the earth. For the develop- 
ment.of the seed, a descent of rain from 
the sky was indispensable; but for a pro- 
duce to come after the rain, the deposi- 
tion of seed in the ground was alike in- 
dispensable. And it is just so in spiri- 
tual husbandry. The seed, which is 
the word of God, cannot bring forth 
fruit of itself, without the descent of the 
spirit of God—that living water from 
above upon the soul. And neither does 
the Spirit of God cause of itself the 
fruits of righteousness to grow, in a soul 
unfurnished with the truths and informa- 
The vegetation of 
grace in the heart, is brought about by 
the one operating upon the other—by 
the spirit giving efficacy and expansion 
to the word. ‘This view marks, and we 
think most distinctly, the limit between 
the agency of God and the agency of 
man—both what that is which man 
ought to perform, and what that is 
which he ought to pray for. The word 
is the germ, whence proceedeth all spi- 
ritual growth; and this must be de- 
posited in the heart, or he shall not be 
saved. The Spirit is the shower, by 
which this word, that would else have 
remained inert and unproductive withir. 
him as a dead letter is quickened ana 


232 


unfolded ; and unless the Spirit descend 
apon his heart, he shall not be saved. 
rhe soul that is ripening for heaven, has 
been compared to a well watered garden. 
There would be no germination without 
a watering of grace from the upper sanc- 
tuary ; but still the germination arises, 
not from the stones, but from the seeds 
of the garden—and if no seeds be there, 
neither showers nor sunshine will avail 
it. And thus let it never be forgotten, 
that, in the heart of man, every germi- 
nation of fruit by the Spirit, is a germina- 
tion from the truths of the Bible; and 
that therefore the work of grace in the 
soul is carried forward, not by perusals 
of the book alone, neither by prayers for 
the blessing alone, but by the co-opera- 
tion of the perusals with the prayers. 

We now come to the second thing pro- 
posed, which was to show, how some of 
what may be called the larger operations 
of Christian philanthropy, admit of a 
certain measure of light being thrown 
upon them, by the comparison made in 
this parable, between the work of a 
Christian teacher and the work of a 
husbandman. 

And first, it may evince to us the effi- 
cacy of that Christian teaching, which is 
sometimes undertaken by men in humble 
life, and of the most ordinary scholar- 
ship. Let them have but understanding 
enough for the great and obvious sim- 
plicities of the Bible, and let them have 
grace enough for devout and depending 
prayer ; and, on the strength of these two 
properties, they are both wise unto salva- 
tion for themselves, and may become the 
instruments of winning the souls of others 
also. We deny not the importance ef a 
far loftier scholarship than theirs for the 
elergy ; and when pleading in behalf of 
the latter for the union of deep science 
with the deepest and most devoted sacred- 
ness, we cannot fail to be reminded of 
Paul, who, though the most accomplished 
of all the apostles in the literature and 
philosophy of his age, was at the same 
time the most effective of them all in 
gaining converts to the gospel of Jesus 
Christ. We shall ever prize then a 
lettered and an intellectual church, whose 
ministers might sustain the battles of the 
faith on the field of authorship, or in the 
high places of society—and yet be the 
bearers of its glad and gracious embassy 


ANALOGIES BETWEEN NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HUSBANDRY. 


[SERM. 


to the habitations of the poor. Neverthe- 
less, we deem it a great thing for Chris- 
tianity, that, among the poor themselves, 
there are to be had such effective auxilia- 
ries to the cause, by whose means the 
whole mass might be leavened into a 
busier and more pervading fermentation ; 
and the message of salvation be speeded 
with tenfold celerity, through parishes 
and populations that no minister can 
possibly overtake. It is well for the 
families of our land, that the lessons of 
eternity can fall with effect even from the 
lips of the cottage patriarch; and it is 
more especially well for its huge and 
overcrowded cities, that the piety of Chris- 
tian mechanics who spend the week in 
unremitting drudgery, can be made suc- 
cessfully to bear at Sabbath, even on the 
profligacy and profaneness of a neglected — 
boyhood. We cannot at all sympathize 
with that lordly intolerance, which would 
look either with distrust or with disdain 
upon their labours—which, jealous lest 
the work of Christian education should 
thus be vulgarised, would confine the 
whole religious instruction even of the 
common people, to regularly trained and 
regularly constituted functionaries. Were 
there a sufficient strength and equipment 
of these, we should the more readily de- 
fer to this antipathy; but it is quite pal- 
pable, that in every parish, a great deal 
more can be done for the interest of the 
gospel, than lies within the achievement 
of one solitary arm; and that scarcely a 
town can be named, where, on compar- 
ing the little band of ecclesiastics with 
the hosts which are congregated therein, 
we do not feel, as if the labourers in so 
mighty a harvest, must utterly sink before 
it into the impotency of despair. There 
is now a general revolt against every 
species of monopoly, but the monopoly 
which would engross to itself the busi- 
ness of Christian instruction, and yet 
leave it undone, is truly the most execra- 
ble of all. And the horrors of that 
scarcity which it entails upon the land 
are nothing the less, because it is an 
artificial scarcity ; or because the people 
are stinted in their supplies of the bread 
of life, not from any want of this precious 
commodity, but from the want of that free 
trade which might bear it more quickly 
and more copiously round among the 
families. There is a wo denounced upon 


XXIX. | 


those who keep the keys of the kingdom 
of heaven, and who neither enter them- 
selves nor suffer those who are willing to 
enter. Be assured that the profligacy of 
the many in cities will fill up and over- 
flow, unless the piety and Christian prin- 
ciple of the few, be called forth and 
rightly directed to the object of making 
head against it. Every available force 
which can be enlisted in this moral war- 
fare, should be turned to the service of it. 
The religionist of some narrow street or 
lane, whom neighbours send for when 
any of a family is dying—the gifted man 
of prayer, who, amid the groupe of assem- 
bled households, can send forth the unc- 
tion of his own piety through a chamber 
crowded by listeners—the respected 
though humble fellow-citizen, who, in 
the absence of all the ministers, is called 
on for the holy services of a funeral day, 
and does acquit himself with a simple 
pathos and a power which are felt 
throughout all the company—the homely 
artisan, who, obscure in the world’s eye, 
has yet been visited by a light from 
heaven; and, in love for the souls of 
those around him, longs and would |a- 
bour that they shared with him the hope 
and the happiness which have gladdened 
his own—These were most efficient 
helps, in the work of Christianizing the 
wastes and the wilds of our city heathen- 
ism; and that, by a virtue which they 
have not gotten at any university, and 
which all our universities cannot give. 
It is in these powerful instruments, the 
word of God and prayer, that the secret 
of their great strength lieth. ‘Theirs is 
that higher wisdom, which is revealed 
unto babes—not often to be found in 
schools of philosophy, and far oftener to 
be found among the humble and despised 
of this world—among men whose names 
are never heard of in our tasteful and 
enlightened circles—among obscure 
tradesmen, unlearned in every thing but 
the simplicity that is in Christ—among 
uncouth devotees whom the finger of 
scorn points at; but who have been 
known to persevere in their labours of 
love under the scowl of proud and priv- 
30 


ANALOGIES BETWEEN NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HUSBANDRY, 


233 


ileged instructors ; and to reclaim whole 
neighbourhoods, by bringing the terrors 
of the law and the calls of repentance to 
bear with an all subduing energy upon 
the vices of their neglected populations. 

But this brings us to the last of those 
analogies between the natural and the 
spiritual husbandry, which we shall at 
present be able to overtake—an analogy 
not certainly suggested by the text, but 
still close enough for the illustration of 
all which we can now afford to say, in 
defence of those parochial establishments 
which have done so much we think, 
both for the Christianity and the scholar- 
ship of our people. 

A territorial division of the country in- 
to parishes, each of which is assigned to 
at least one minister as the distinct and 
definite field of his spiritual cultivation— 
this we have long thought does for Chris- 
tianity, what is often done in agriculture 
by a system of irrigation. You are 
aware what is meant by this. Its use is 
for the conveyance and the distribution 
of water, that indispensable aliment to all 
vegetation, over the surface of the land. 
it is thus for example, that, by the estab- 
lishment of ducts of conveyance, the 
waters of the Nile are made to overspread 
the farms of Egypt—the country through 
which it passes. ‘This irrigation, you 
will observe, does not supply the water. 
It only conveys it. It does not bring 
down the liquid nourishment from 
heaven. It only spreads it abroad upon 
the earth. Were there no descent of 
water from above causing the river to 
overflow its banks—there is nothing in 
the irrigation, with its then dry and de- 
serted furrows, which could avail the 
earth that is below. On the other hand 
were there no irrigation, many would be 
the tracts of country, that should have no 
agriculture and could bring no produce. 
Let not therefore our dependence on the 
Spirit lead us to despise the machinery 
of a territorial establishment ; and neither 
let our confidence in machinery lead us 
to neglect prayer for the descent of living 
water from on high. 


234 


UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL OFFER. 


[SERM. 


SERMON XXX. 


On the Universality of the Gospel Offer. 


“ Good-will toward men.”—LuKE ii. 14. 


Wauen you want a friend to shift him- 
self from a worse to a better situation, 
there are two distinct arguments that 
might be employed for the attainment of 
your object. You may either insist up- 
on the evils of his present situation ; or 
you may lay before him an alluring pic- 
ture of the new situation, you want him 
to occupy. You may work either upon 
his fears or upon his hopes; and while 
by the constitution of some minds, the 
one argument is more effectual than the 
other—there are also minds, which need 
both the arguments to be earnestly and 
perseveringly urged upon them, ere you 
ean obtain their concurrence in the mea- 
sure you are aiming at. 

Now there is one common situation in 
which we are all placed ; and it is asitu- 
ation full of insecurity and danger. We 
trust we may have said enough to do 
away that delusive peace, which may 
rest in the fancied accomplishments of 
their character. One face is more beau- 
tiful than another. Yet there is a worm 
of decay in each and all of them; and 
the loathsomeness of corruption will at 
length spread itself over the fairest and 
the most fascinating of human forms. 
One mind is more amiable than another 
—yet each of them carries in it a rooted 
principle of alienation from God. Under 
all their variety from the less to the more 
lovely, this foullest of all moral deformity 
adheres to them; and thus it may be 
said of the most amiable men, that, with 
this point of decisive condemnation about 
them, they are the children of wrath even 
as others; anda spiritual law looks hard 
upon them also, for their habitual viola- 
tion of its first and greatest requirement ; 
and there is no one power within the 
whole compass of nature, no one expe- 
dient within reach of the situation which 
by nature they occupy, that can ward off 
the threatenings of this outraged law. 
Heaven and earth must pass away, ere 


a single sanction of God’s proclaimed 
law can fail of its accomplishment. And 
thus it is, that there are many, and very 
many, revered by their fellows while 
they live, and leaving a dear anda much 
loved remembrance behind them—who 
remaining in the situation which by na 
ture they occupied, remain in the number 
of those over whom the second death has 
full power ; and they, even they, with all 
the passing admiration they get on this 
side of death, are fast hastening to a cor- 
ruption more hideous than the grave, and 
to a misery still more hopeless than ever 
body of man in the full weight of its dy- 
ing agonies was doomed to endure. 
Now when we lay before you the dan- 
ger and the helplessness of such a situa- 
tion—when we tell you, that, forgetful 
of God as you are by nature, all the lus- 
tre of your other accomplishments will 
not keep Him, in His own language, 
from tearing you in pieces when there is 
none to deliver—when we assure you, 
that, if you continue what nature made 
you, you continue a vessel of wrath fitted 
for destruction—when we bid your con- 
science answer us the question, whether, 
upon a review of what that is which 
chiefly engrosses your heart and animates 
your conduct and forms the ruling object 
of your most urgent and habitual desires, 
whether or not you may be said to live 
without God in the world—when the an- 
swer of conscience is, that, in thought 
and in affection, you are almost constant- 
ly away from God ; and, while all alive 
to the impression of other things, you in 
reference to Him are.a most blind and 
senseless and alienated creature—Then, 
surely, if the Bible be something more 
than the mockery of an imposition, and it 
tell us that all the nations that forget 
God shall be turned into hell, we, when 
pressing this upon you, are just endeay- 
ouring to alarm you out of your present 
situation—We are bringing the argu 


xxx] 


ment of terror to bear upon you, an 
argument which we believe to be most 
effectual with some minds—for it is to its 
operation that the apostle Jude seems 
to refer, when he says “ some save with 
- fear, pulling them out of the fire.” 

But there is another situation to which 
we are called upon to come over; and 
there is a free passage opened up to it; 
and when we move from the one situation 
to the other, we are relieved from the 
mighty burden of all that misery which 
originally weighed upon us. “ There is 
no condemnation to them who are in 
Christ Jesus’—these are the words 
which give us the delightful assurance, 
that, while to all who are out of Christ 
the look of God is a look of severity ; to 
all who are in Him it is a look of kind- 
ness—while from the one situation there 
is a fearful looking for of judgment; from 
the other there is a rejoicing hope of the 
glory of God—while in the one there is 
the helplessness of unaided nature, pain- 
fully striving after an obedience which it 
can never reach ; in the other there isa 
supply of all that strength and spiritual 
nourishment, which are daily given to 
the daily prayers of believers—while in 
the one there is an obstinate forgetfulness 
of God, because He is shut out at every 
turn from the eye of the natural mind, 
still under the dominion of things seen 
and things temporal; there is in the 
other, a fond and a habitual recurrence 
of all our affections to Him. For by the 
renewing process which all who take the 
offer of the Gospel are made to undergo, 
the soul is made alive unto God. Love 
to Him becomes the aspiring principle of 
all its endeavours. Instead of that lour- 
ing and suspicious distance at which we 
before stood from the God whom we had 
offended, we draw near with a confiding 
sense of our reconciliation; and our 
hearts know what it is to love Him who 
first loved us. Under the influence of 
these new principles, we are gradually 
formed after the image of Him who crea- 
ted us. We are made meet for that 
communion with Him, which sin had 
broken up. Weare restored to a fitness 
for His society in heaven, and for all 
those holy exercises which form the 
pleasure and the employment of heaven’s 
mhabitants. And surely we have com- 
pleted the contrast between the two situa- 


UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL OFFER. 


235 


tions, when, for the present darkness and 
sinfulness and gloomy apprehensions 
which hang over the one, we lay before 
you the progressive virtue and the tri- 
umphant prospects of the other. And, 
instead of your fear, we work upon an- 
other principle of your constitution, even 
your hope—when, in our attempts to 
cheer you forward to that ground which 
believers occupy, we lay before you their 
peace with God and progressive holiness 
here, and the splendours of their unfad- 
ing immortality hereafter. 

But this argument, though differing 
from the former, is not just the argument 
of our text. The goodness of the things 
to which you are invited is one thing. 
The good-will with which you are invi- 
ted is ancther. It is the latter argument 
which we are at present called upon 
to address to you. What we offer to 
your notice is—not the happiness you 
will enjoy by the acceptance of the gos- 
pel call, but the kindness which prompts 
the call. There is no doubt a mighty 
effect upon some minds, in the displeas- 
ure of God manifested against all who 
refuse to obey the gospel of His Son ; ana 
knowing his terrors, it is our part to 
make use of them in the business of per- 
suading men. But others again are more 
drawn by the cords of love; and the 
tender voice of a beseeching and inviting 
God, will sometimes soften that heart into 
acquiesence, which would have remained 
in shut and shielded obstinacy against all 
the severity of His threatenings. It is 
the desire of God after you—it is His 
compassionate longing to have back 
again to Himself, those sinful creatures 
who had wandered away from Him —it 
is His fatherly earnestness to recall His 
strayed children—it is this, which, by 
moving and subduing the will of man, 
exemplifies the assertion of the apostle 
when he says—know ye not that the 
goodness of God leadeth to repentance. 
And thus while Jude says of some in his 
general epistle, “these save with fear, 
pulling them out of the fire ;” he says o1 
others—“ on them have compassion, mak- 
ing a difference.” 

In the farther prosecution of this dis- 
course, we Shall first say a few words on 
the principle of the gospel message— 
good-will—Secondly, on the object of the 
gospel message—men—it Is a message 


236 


of good-will to men—And thirdly, on 
the application of the gospel message to 
the men who now hear us. 

When we say that God is actuated by 
a principle of good-will to you, it sounds 
in your ears a very simple proposition— 
easily uttered by the speaker, and as 
easily apprehended by the hearer. Yes! 
itis easy enough to reach the mere un- 
derstanding of the hearer by such an an- 
nouncement. But it isa work of greater 
difficulty than many of you have per- 
haps thought of, to win his confidence in 
its truth—to shake him out of his suspi- 
cions—to open his heart to a sense of 
God’s graciousness, and God’s willing- 
ness to take every sinner into acceptance. 
There is a barrier in these evil hearts of 
unbelief, against the admission of a filial 
confidence in God. We see no mildness 
in the aspect of the Deity. Our guilty 
fears suggest the apprehension of a stern 
and vindictive character. There is a 
veil which hides from the eye of flesh 
this greatest of spiritual Beings ; and to 
our fancy there lurk behind it the unde- 
fined images of wrath and terror and se- 
vere majesty. It is not in the power of ar- 
gument to do away this impression. It 
does not lie within the compass of stren- 
uous asseveration to dislodge it. The 
minister may put forth all his eloquence, 
and tell you in tones as gentle as ever 
dropt from the lips of persuasion, that 
God is Jove; and that his every aspira- 
tion after His lost and fallen children is 
tenderness. He may melt, and soothe, 
and for a time compose your hearts by 
his winning assurances of God’s good- 
will to you; and you may weep and 
wonder at your injurious sentiments of so 
good a Father. He may put the asser- 
tion into your mouth, that God wishes 
me well—but secretly you have other 
feelings of Him. Your mind recurs to 
its rooted and habitual jealousy of God. 
There lies a darkling cloud of suspicion 
over your every impression of the Deity. 
The earnest assurances of the preacher 
may disperse it for a moment; but his 
voice ceases and it again gathers over 
you. You leave the church, and you 
carry away with you a heart as uncheer- 
ed as ever by the light of God’s counte- 
nance. You recur for another week to 
your familiar employments, and your 
path in life is as unblest as ever by a 


UNIVERSALITY OF ‘THE GOSPEL OFFER. 


{SERM 


sense of God’s reconciled presence. There 
may be an occasional joy in these hearts 
of yours ; but when we come to examine 
it, it is not joy in God. ‘There may be 
all the repose of an undisturbed security 
in your minds; but it is not a security 
resting on a sentiment of conscious ae- 
ceptance with God. It is joy in the crea- 
ture. It is security in earthly things. It 
is the idolatry of a heart, delighting itself 
with that which drives all painful and 
fatiguing thoughts.of God away from it. 
The gay or peaceful tenor of your lives, 
is no evidence of trust on your part in 
the good-will or in the graciousness of 
God. It only proves how seldom you 
think of Him. When you do think of 
Him, it is not with the delighted confi- 
dence of children. There is a jealousy 
of God, which haunts you and hangs 
over you; and, to escape from the pain- 
fulness of this, do you take up with other 
things, to which the heart recurs with a 
readier and more habitual fondness. 
Could we succeed in obtaining for the les- 
son of our text, the full persuasion of 
your minds, it would not be so. If you 
saw the good-will of God, in all that 
kindly and endearing character which 
belongs to it, you would find a treasure 
in which you would greatly delight 
yourself. He would become that secure 
and joyful habitation to which you would 
resort continually. The heart would be 
taken up with Him, as its strength and 
its portion. Other things might pass at 
times before the attention, and be as much 
loved as not to impair the supremacy of 
the love of God over all your affections 
But He would ever remain the object of 
the ruling desire which filled and ac- 
tuated your bosoms: And if we find that 
a desire after the creature, occupies that 
place within you which should be taken 
up by a desire after the Creator—then 
all the tranquillity of worldly men, and 
all the careless and animating gaiety 
which abounds among them, will not 
convince us that a peaceful confidence in 
the good-will of the divine Being, is the 
sentiment which they carry in their 
hearts. O no! it is not because they 
think God to be their friend, that they 
move along so securely and so pleasantly. 
It is because they do not think of Him at 
all. It is because they find a sufficiency 
in the things of sight and sense, which 


XXX.] 


are around them; and they forget the 
unseen Being who formed all and who 
supports all. They have their treasure 
and their enjoyment on earth; and, as 
to the God who made it, they hate Him, 
they distrust Him, they are afraid of 
Him. 

Now though we are persuaded, that a 
real belief, existing in the minds of these 
people, of God’s undoubted good-will to- 
wards them, would have the effect of 
charming them away from the deceitful 
enjoyments of the world, and making 
them rest their enjoyment in the posses- 
sion and in the service of God—yet it is 
not them we have chiefly in our eye, 
when we press in your hearing, the ar- 
gument of our text. They are people of 
another temperament, whom we are ad- 
verting to—people who brood in anxiety 
over their chance of a higher interest than 
any that this world can offer—people 
who are smitten and softened, under a 
sense of unworthiness—people who walk 
in darkness and have no light, who 
cannot win the length of cheerful confi- 
dence in God, who long after a sense of 
His good-will but cannot obtain it; and 
who, so far from never thinking of Him, 
are much employed in pondering His 
ways, and who think of Him often, but 
do it with trembling and with much hea- 
viness. We know that they will not be 
made to see God, in that aspect of gra- 
ciousness which belongs to Him, till the 
power of a special revelation be made to 
rest upon them—till God Himself who 
created light out of darkness shine in 
their hearts: But knowing also, that He 
makes use of the word as His instrument, 
it is our part to lay the assurances of that 
word, in all their truth and in all their 
tenderness before you. God swears by 
Himself, that He has no pleasure in your 
death. That He may prevail upon you 
to trust Him, He tries every expedient. 
He does all that tenderness can devise to 
remove your every suspicion; and to 
cheer you on to a confidence in His good- 
will) He pleads the matter with you. 
He beseeches you to accept of reconcilia- 
tion at His hand. He offers it as a gift, 
and descends so far as to knock at the 
door of your hearts and to crave your 
acceptance of it. ‘To do away the ob- 
structions whirh lay in the road of access 
from a sinner to his offended God, He 


UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL OFFER. 


237 


set up the costly apparatus of redemption. 
As the remission of sins without the 
shedding of blood is impossible, He 
cleared the way between Him and a 
guilty world of this mighty barrier. 
Rather than lose you for ever, He sent 
His Son to pour out His soul unto death 
for you. And now that iniquity is put 
an end to—now that an everlasting right- 
eousness is brought in—now that every 
attribute of His nature has been magni- 
fied by the great Sacrifice—now that the 
weight of that heavy burden, which re- 
strained the expression of his good-will 
to the children of men, has been done 
away by Him who bore the chastisernent 
of our peace—now that there is nothing 
to intercept the flow of friendship from 
God to man, does it come down free as 
the light of day and rich as the exhuber- 
ance of heaven upon a despairing world. 


II. We now proceed, in the second 
place, to the object of the gospel mes- 
sage—men—a message of good-will to 
men. We think that much is to be 
gathered, from the general and unre- 
stricted way in which this object is stated. 
The announcement which was heard 
from the canopy of heaven, was not good- 
will to certain men to the exclusion of 
others. It is not an offer made to some, 
and kept back from the rest of the spe- 
cies. It is generally to man. The gene- 
rality of the term tells us that no one in- 
dividual needs to look upon himself, as 
shut out from the good-will of his Father 
in heaven. Let him be who he may, 
we cheer him on to confidence in God’s 
good-will to him; and we do so purely 
and singly in virtue of his being a man. 
We see no exception in the text ; and we 
make no exception from the pulpit. We 
find a general assurance in the word of 
God ; and we cast it abroad among you, 
without reserve and without limitation. 
Where it is to light, and who the indi 
vidual whose bosom it is to enter as the 
harbinger of peace we know not—but 
sure we are that it can never light 
wrong; and that wherever faith in God 
is formed, it is followed by the fulfilment 
of all His promises. We know well the 
scruples of the disconsolate; and with 
what success a perverse melancholy can 
devise and multiply its arguments for 
despair. But we will admit of none of 


238 


them. We look at our text, and find 
that it recognises no outcast. By one 
comprehensive sweep, it takes in the 
whole race of man; and empowers the 
messenger of God, to ply with the assu- 
rances of His good-will, all the individu- 
als of all its families. We see that there 
is no Straitening with God—that favour 
and forgiveness are ready to come down 
abundantly from Him upon every son 
and daughter of the species—that His 
mercy rejoices over all—and that in 
pouring it forth over the wide extent of a 
sinful creation, the unbelief of man is the 
only obstacle which it has to struggle 
with. ‘Tell us not, in the obstinacy of 
your distrust, that you are such a sinner 
—all your sins, many and aggravated as 
they are, are the sins of aman. ‘Tell us 
not of the malignity of your disease—it 
is the disease of a man. ‘Tell us not of 
your being so grievous an offender that 
you are the very chief of them. Still 
you areaman. Christ knew what was 
in man; and He knew all the varieties 
of case and of character which belong to 
Him. And still there must be something 
in His gospel to meet all and to make up 
for all—for He impairs not by one single 
exception, the universality of the gospel 
message, which is good-will to man. We 
again lift in your hearing the widely 
sounding call. Look unto Him all ye 
ends of the earth and be saved. If the 
call be not listened to, it is not for want 
of kindness and freeness and honesty in 
the call—it is for want of confidence in 
the called. ‘There is no straitening with 
God. It is all with yourselves. It les 
in the cold and dark and narrow suspi- 
cions which stifle and fill up your own 
bosoms. ‘The offer of God’s good-will is 
through Christ Jesus, unto all and upon 
all them that believe. We want to lodge 
this offer in your hearts, and you will 
not let us. We want to woo you into 
confidence, but you remain sullen and 
inflexible. We want to whisper peace 
to your souls; but you refuse the voice 
of the charmer, let him charm ever so 
wisely. We stand here as the ambassa- 
dor of a beseeching God, and we are 
charged with His freest and_ kindest in- 
vitations to one and to all of you. We 
do not exceed our commission by a sin- 
gle inch, when we tell of God’s good- 
will to you, and that nothing is awanting 


UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL OFFER. 


[SERM. 


but your good-will towards God, that 
you may obtain peace and reconciliation 
and joy. All who will may come and 
drink of the waters of life freely. God 
fastens a mark of exclusion upon none 
of you. He bids us preach the gospel to 
every creature ; and every creature who 
believes will be saved. He has no plea- 
sure in any of yourdeaths. Believe and 
ye shall be saved. Draw near unto God 
and He will draw near unto you. Turn 
ye, turn ye, why will you die? We 
speak in the very language of God, 


‘though we fall infinitely short of such a 


tone and of such a tenderness as He has 
over you. If you think otherwise of 
God, you do Him an injustice. You 
look at Him with the jaundiced eye of 
unbelief. You array Him in a darker 
shroud than belongs to Him. You man- 
tle one of the attributes of the Divinity, 
from the view of your own mind. You 
withdraw your faith from His own decla- 
ration of His own name, as the Lord God 
merciful and gracious. Instead of yield- 
ing the homage of your confidence and 
your affection to the true God, you su- 
perstitiously tremble before a god of your 
own fancy. You putall the earnest and 
repeated assurances of God’s actual reve- 
lation away from you; and nourish in 
your hearts such a cold and distant and 
timid apprehension of the Deity, as, if 
persisted in, will land you in an inher. 
itance among the unbelieving and the 
fearful. 

And here the question occurs to us— 
how does the declaration of God’s good- 
will in the text, consist with the entire 
and everlasting destruction of so many 
of the species? In point of fact, all men 
are not saved. We speak not of those 
who never heard of Jesus—for instead of 
spending our strength in attempts to dissi- 
pate the obscurity which hangs over the 
hidden counsels of God, we want every 
thing we say to bear on the great object 
of a home and a practical application. 
But of those who have heard of the name 
of Jesus—how few alas find the way to 
life—how many are carried along the 
broad way that leadeth to destruction. 
How does the good-will of the text obtain 
accomplishment upon them; and in what 
way are they the objects of good-will, 
who eventually shall be punished with 
everlasting destruction from the presence 


x] 


of the Lord and from the glory of His 
power? Understand then that the good- 
will of the text, consists, not in the actual 
bestowment of eternal life upon all in the 
next world; but in holding out, in this 
world, the gift of eternal life to the free 
_and welcome acceptance of all. We 
hold out a gift to two people, which one 
of them may take and the other may 
refuse. The good-will in me which 
prompted the offer, was the same in 
reference to both. God in this sense 
willeth that all men shall be saved. We 
are doing His will, when we lay the gift 
of eternal life before each and all of you. 
Some may refuse to know God, and 
to obey the gospel of His Son; but this 
does not impair the frankness and the 
freeness and the cordiality with which 
the cift is shown to all, and all are invited 
to take hold of it. Nay, the good-will 
of God to those who have rejected the 
salvation of the gospel, may look more 
conspicuous in the day of judement, than 
His good-will to those who have received 
it. It might not be so, had He only 
issued one call—had He plied them with 
one invitation, and never repeated it. 
But He has done more than made one 
invitation. He has made it again and 
again. It has been repeated in a thou- 
_ sand forms. From the first moment that 
you understood your Bibles, you had the 
invitation. Every time you see the 
Bible, you may again have the invitation. 
Every time you read, “If any man is 
athirst let him come unto me and drink,” 
you get another invitation. Every time 
you hear the minister faithfully expound- 
ing the oracles of God there is still 
another invitation: And will you deny 
the good-will of God to you at this mo- 
ment—that He has brought you in life 
and listening around us—and to-day if ye 
will hear His voice you have another 
myitation. None of you have reason to 
complain of God. He is at this moment 
wiping His hands of you; and on the 
great theatre of judgment it will be made 
to appear, that there is no backwardness 
and no straitening on His part. The 
offer is not to this one man among you 
and to that other, to the exclusion of all 
the rest. It is to man in general; and 
if the word of salvation have reached you, 
the offer of salvation is made to you. To 
_aecept of that offer is to discern its reality 


UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL OFFER. 


239 


—it is to put faith in,-he honesty and 
good-will with which it is laid before 
you—it is to trust in the promise which 
is unto all and upon all who believe. In 
stating these matters we shall be as gen- 
eral in our address to the assembled mul- 
titude, as the apostle Peter was before us. 
He said repent every one of you—we 
say believe every one of you ; and accord- 
ing to your faith so will it be done unto 
you. Be assured every one of you, that 
God has good-will towards each and to- 
wards all. There is no limitation with 
Him; and be not you limited by your 
own narrow and fearful and superstitious 
conceptions of Him. 


IIf. But this leads us in the last place, 
to press home the lesson of the text, on 
you who are now sitting and listening 
around us. God, in the act of ushering 
the gospel into the world, declares good- 
will to man. He declares it therefore to 
you. You are not excluded from this 
general declaration. To you the word 
of salvation has come, for we are now ad- 
dressing it to you—and we call you 
to give way to the impressive condition, 
of a God beseeching you to be reconciled 
—a God who intends your benefit—a 
God who professes Himself to be actuated 
by good-will to one and to all of you. 
You have read in a book of voyages, of 
the many expedients which are tried 
to gain the confidence of the natives in a 
before undiscovered country ; and how 
mortifying it is, when every demonstra- 
tion of good-will is misunderstood or re- 
sisted. ‘They had never seen such a 
ship—they had never beheld such a peo- 
ple—and, kept back by terror, every 
attempt to woo their approach is in vain 
exhausted upon them. Would they only 
stand to receive our gifts, or to hear our 
assurances of kindness, we might soon 
ingratiate ourselves into their confidence. 
But no! they run to their woods, or 
to their lurking holes; and it is not till 
after many signs of invitation have been 
rejected—after many attempts to gain 
their confidence have proved ineffectual 
—after many expedients for bringing 
round a friendly intercourse with the na- 
tives have turned out to be fruitless and 
unavailing—lIt is not till after many re- 
peated experiments of this kind, that the 
inhabitants begin at length to receive 


240 | 


their favours—to put faith in the profes- 
sions of the strangers—and to rejoice in 
the assurance of their benevolence and 
good-will. Now, the rest of the world is 
not more strange to an undiscovered 
island, than Paradise and the beings who 
inhabit it are strange to the men of this 
sinful and banished world. The great 
errand from heaven to earth, of which 
the records have come down to us, was, 
not to destroy men’s lives but to save 
them. It was altogether, if we may be 
allowed the expression, a voyage of be- 
nevolence—but this did not hinder the 
very first appearance of the heavenly 
visitors, from exciting the fears of weak 
and guilty and alienated man. When 
the angel of the Lord came upon the 
shepherds, they were sore afraid—but 
they could not fly from his presence, and 
this gave him an advantage. He could 
talk tothem. He could cheer tiem into 
confidence. He could force them to hear 
him, when he said—“ fear not for I bring 
you glad tidings of great joy.” He could 
act aS a messenger of kindness, to pre- 
pare them for the more numerous host of 
visitors who were to follow—nor do we 
read of their being at all startled or dis- 
mayed, when this host joined the angel, 
and the whole multitude of them praised 
God, and said, Glory to God in the high- 
est, peace on earth and good-will to men. 
Their confidence was now gained. They 
gave up those fears and apprehensions 
which stood in the way of their faith; 
and we afterwards read of their glorify- 
ing and praising God, for all the things 
that they had heard and seen. 

Now, you are liable to the same fears 
with these shepherds. You are guilty ; 
and to you belong all the weakness, and 
all the timidity of guilt. The idea of 
God is apt to send terror into your 
hearts; and though we come over you, 
and over you again, with the assurance 
of God being gracious, of God being 
willing to take you all back again unto 
Himself, of God pressing your return 
with every offer of friendship and every 
feeling of tenderness—these fears are apt 
to stick to you—you cannot summon up 
confidence ; and, in spite of the most 
solemn and earnest and repeated assur- 
ances of your Bible and your minister, 
you still keep away from God. Now 
tell us are these misgivings at all reason- 


UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL OFFER. 


[SERM. 


able? Do they not carry in them a most 
injurious reflection against God? Do 
they not evince a higher respect for your 
own fears and your own fancies of Him, 
than for the account of His own mes- 
sengers, who came upon His errand, and 
left the presence of His glory, and ap- 
peared in the air to the shepherds at — 
Bethlehem 2? Whatever be the dark and 
mysterious colouring of that imaginary 
veil, which hides the Deity from your 
observation—be assured that good-will is 
the real feeling which belongs to Him. 
Surely this is as kind a term as you can 
possibly wish. It carries every expres- 
sion of endearment and cordiality along 
with it; and, try what we may, we could 
not devise another, more fitted to chase 
away your every fear, and to gain your 
whole confidence, and to cheer you amid 
all the vicissitudes of your life and all 
the terrors of your fancy. And, when 
like to lose the comfort of faith, we know 
no one expression, which, when sum- 
moned yp to the memory, and dwelt up- 
on with perseverance, and determinedly 
held by amid all the darkness and dis- 
comforts which meet the heart in the 
multitude of its thoughts, is more fitted 
than the single expression of good-will 
to restore light to my soul and make me 
say why art thou disquieted within me 4 

By bringing your minds to the delight- 
ful confidence, which a belief in the truth 
of all this is fitted to inspire, you are ex- 
ercising that very high faith with which 
God is well pleased. You cease from 
affronting Him by your suspicions. 
You do honour to His testimony. You 
set to your seal that God is true. He 
no longer grieves for the hardness of 
your hearts, when they give up their re- 
sistance to the impressive consideration 
of His good-will to you; and to the af- 
fecting proofs of His good-will, in His 
Son suffering for you, His Son dying for 
you, His Son bearing for your sakes a 
load of mysterious agony, and pouring 
out the blood of atonement to wash you 
from the guilt and the pollution of all 
your iniquities. We have experienced 
long enough the utter powerlessness of 
all human argument, to think that 
what we have said will open a way to 
your hearts, unless the Spirit interpose, 
and give His efficacy to the testimony of 
Christ’s sufferings and death. He can 


xxi] 


melt you. He can compel you to listen 
and to believe. He can make you feel 
the burden of those hateful sins by which 
you are encompassed. He can point 
your eye td the Saviour, that best pledge 
and evidence of God’s good-will to you ; 
and make you exclaim with joyful confi- 
dence, I have been in quest of a remedy, 
and here at length have I found it. 
Cherish no doubt as to its efficacy. 
Have your eye opened to the freeness of 
_ the offer, and to the value of the thing 
offered. Ifthe power of God’, grace go 


ON THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 


24) 


along with the utterance of our dirextion 
—then He is doing by an instrument, 
what He is able to do without one—He 
is working faith in you with power— 
He is lifting that veil, which keeps out 
the entrance of the glorious gospel, from 
the minds of those who are blinded by 
the god of this world—He who com. 
manded the light to shine out of dark- 
ness, is shining in your heart; to give 
you the light of the knowledge of His 
glory in the face of Jesus Christ. 


SERMON XXXI. 


On the Respect Due to Antiquity. 


“ Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good 


way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. 


therein.”—JeREMIAH vi. 16, 


Ir has been well said by Lord Bacon, 
that the antiquity of past ages is the youth 
of the. world—and therefore it is an inver- 
sion of the right order, to look for greater 
wisdom in some former generation than 
there should be in our present day. “ The 
time in which we now live,” says this 
great philosopher, “Is properly the an- 
cient time, because now the world is an- 
cient; and not that time which we call 
ancient, when we look ina retrograde di- 
rection, and by a computation backward 
from ourselves.” There must be a delu- 
sion, then, in that homage which is given 
to the wisdom of antiquity, as if it bore 
the same superiority over the wisdom of 
the present times, which the wisdom of 
an old does over that of a young man. 
When we speak of the wisdom of any 
age, we mean the wisdom which at that 
period belongs to the collective mind of 
the species. But it is an older species at 
present than it was in those days, called 
by us, the days of antiquity. I[t is now 
both more venerable in years, and carries 
a greater weighty of experience. It was 
a child before tite flood; and if it have 
not yet become a man, it is nearer to man- 
hood now than it wasthen. Therefore, 
when reviewing the notions and the asa- 

es of our forefathers we, instead of cast- 
ing off the instructions of a greater wis- 
31 


But they said, We will not walk 


dom than our own, may, in fact, be put- 
ting away from us childish things. It is 
in vain to talk of Socrates, and Plato, and 
Aristotle. Only grant that there may 
still be as many good individual speci- 
mens of humanity as before; and a So- 
crates now, with all the additional lights 
which have sprung up in the course of in- 
tervening centuries to shine upon his under- 
standing, would be a greatly wiser man 
than the Socrates of a thousand years ago. 
It is therefore well, in the great master 
of the New Philosophy, to have asserted 
the prerogative, and in fact the priority, 
of our present age; that to it belongs a 
more patriarchal glory than to all the 
ages of all the patriarchs; that our gene- 
ration is a more hoary-headed chronicler, 
and is more richly laden with the truths 
and the treasures of wisdom, than any ge- 
neration which has gone before it—the 
olden time, wherewith we blindly asso- 
ciate so much of reverence, being indeed 
the season of the world’s youth, and the 
world’s inexperience; and this our modern 
day being the true antiquity of the world. 

But, however important thus to reduce 
the deference that is paid to antiquity ; 
and with whatever grace and propriety it 
has been done by him who stands at the 
head of the greatest revolution in Philoso- 
phy—we shall incur the danger of run 


242 


aing mto most licentious waywardness, 
if we receive not tne principle, to which 
I have now adverted, with two modifi- 
cations. 

You will better conceive what these 
modifications are, by just figuring to your- 
selftwo distinct books, whence knowledge 
or wisdom may be drawn—one the book | 
of the world’s experience, the other, the | 
book of God’s revelation ; the one, there-| 
fore, becoming richer, and more replete; 
with instruction every day, by the perpet- | 
ual additions which are making to it; the 
other, being that book from which no man 
can take away, neither can any man add 
thereunto. 

Our first modification, then, is, that 
though, in regard to all experimental 
truth, the world should be wiser now than 
it was centuries ago, this is the fruit not 
of our contempt or our heedlessness in re- 
gard to former ages, but the fruit of our 
most respectful attention to the lessons 
which their history affords. In other 
words, as we are only wiser because of 
the now larger book of experience which 
is in our hands, we are not so to scorn an- 
tiquity, as to cast that book away from us ; 
but we are to learn from antiquity, by 
giving the book our most assiduous peru- 
sal, while, at the same time, we sit in the 
exercise of our own free and independent 
judgment over the contentsofit. Although 
we listen not to antiquity, as if she sent 
forth the voice of an oracle, yet we should 
look with most observant eye to all that 
antiquity sets before us. She is not to be 
the absolute mistress of our judgment, 
but still she presents the best materials on 
which the judgment of man can possibly 
be exercised. ‘The only reason, truly, 
why the present age should be wiser than 
the past, is, that it stands on that higher | 
vantage ground which its progenitor had | 
raised for it. But we should never have | 
reached the vantage ground, if, utterly | 


THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 


[SERM. 


coveries alone, but also from the devious 
absurdities and errors of all the races 
that had preceded it. The truth is, that. 
an experiment may be as instructive by 
its failure as by its success—in the one 
case serving as a beacon, and in the other 
as a guide; and so from the very errors 
and misgivings of former days might we 
gather, by the study of them, the most 
solid and important accessions to our Wis- — 
dom. We do right in not submitting to 

the dictation of antiquity; but that is 
no cause why we should refuse to be in- 
formed by her—for this were throwing us 
back again to the world’s infancy, like 
the second childhood of him whoin dis 
ease had bereft of all his recollections. 
Sull we reserve the independence of our 
own judgment, while we take this retro- 
spective survey, and ask for the old paths, 
and so compare them together as to sepa- 
rate the right from the wrong, and fix at ~ 
length on the good way. And so, again, 
in the language of Bacon, “ Antiquity de- 
serveth that reverence, that men should 
make a stand thereupon, and discover 
what is the best way ; but when the dis- 
covery is well taken then to make pro- 
gression.” ) 

On pondering well the view that has 
been now given, you will come to per- 
ceive how there is in truth a perfect har- 
mony between the utmost independence 
on the dictates of antiquity on the one 
hand, and on the other the most defer- 
ential regard to all its informations. 

But there is a second modification, 
which, in the case of a single individual 
of the species, it is easy to understand, 
and which we shall presently apply to 
the whole species. ‘There is a wisdom 
distinct from knowledge; and one rich 
in the acquisitions of the latter, may prac- 
tically be driven from the way of the 
former, by the headlong impulse of his 
vicious and wrong affections. Now, a 


.heedless of all that has gone before, we! book of wisdom may be taught in very 
fad spurned the informations and thejearly childhood. It may, it is true, be 
science of previous generations away from the product of the accumulated experi- 
us. The man of three-score should not! ence of all ages; but it also may, as be- 
be the wiser of his age, dida blight come | ing a book of moral instructions, and so — 
over his memory, to obliterate all the ex-! dictated by the inspiration of a higher 
perience and all the acquisitions of his | faculty than that of mere observation—it 
fjermer years. The very remembrance | may, instead of having been produced 
of his follies makes him wiser—and thus; by a slow experience, have been pro- 
it is, that every succeeding race gathers a| duced by the enlightened conscience of 
new store of instruction, not from the lis-|its author, although afterwards all ex- 


$ 


XXXt.] THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 243 


perience would attest the way of its pre-| infancy; or even though it should retain 
cepts to be a way of interest and of all its experimental truth, and grow 
safety, as well as a way of excellence.| every day richer therein, yet it is con- 
The lessons of such a book may be) ceivable that, from various causes it may 
urged upon man, and with all a parent’s | come to shut its eyes against that morab 
tenderness, from the outset of his educa-| or that revealed truth, which both are 
tion. He may have been trained by it|the offspring of a higher source than 
to observe all the infant proprieties, and| mere human experience. The one, or 
to lisp the infant’s prayer. It may have} moral truth, may be taught in all its per- 
been the guide and the companion of his | fection to man when an infant; and the 
boyhood ; and not, perhaps, till in the| other, or revealed truth, may have been 
wild misrule of youthful profligacies and | delivered to the world when it was 
passions, did he shut his eyes to the pure | young. Neither can be added to by the 
religious light wherewith it had shone| faculty of observation; and, unlike to 
upon his ways. We may conceive of | the lessons of philosophy, the lessons of 
such a man, that, after many years of | morality and revelation do not accumu- 
Vicious indulgence,.of growing and at/| late by the succession of ages. And just 
length confirmed hardihood, of gradually | as the individual man might deviate, in 
decaying and now almost extinct sensi-| the progress of years, from the pure and 
bility,—we may conceive of this hack-! perfect virtues that were inculeated upon 
neyed veteran in the world and all its} his childhood, so the collective species 
evil ways, that he is at once visited by | might stray, in the progress of centuries, 
the lights of conscience and memory ;| from that unsullied light which had been 
and that thus he is enabled to contrast | held forth to them by the lamp of revel- 
the dislike, and the dissatisfaction, and lation. In a prolonged course of way- 
the dreariness of heart, which now prey | wardness, they may have wandered very 
on the decline of his earthly existence, | far from the truth of heaven. ‘They ma 
with all the comparative innocence which | have renounced all that docility and that 
gladdened its hopeful and its happy :orn- | duteous subordination which character- 
ing. The wisdom of his manhood did | ize the disciples of a former age. Like 
not grow with his experience; for now|as the tyranny of youthful passions 
that he looks back upon it, he finds it but | might overbear the authority of those in- 
a mortifying retrospect of wretchedness| structions which had been given by an 
and folly ; and the only way in which| earthly parent, so the tyranny of preju- 
this experience can be of use to him now dice might overbear the authority of the 
is that it may serve as a foil by which to| lessons and the laws which had been 
‘raise in his eyes the lustre and the love- | given to the world by our heavenly Fa- 
liness of virtue. And as he bethinks|ther. And like as the great spiritual ad- 
him of his first, his early home, of the | versary of the human race might, by the 
Sabbath piety which flourished there, | corrupt ascendancy which he wields 
and that holy atmosphere in which he|over the hearts of men, seduce them 
was taught to breathe with kindred as- | from the piety of their early days—so, 
pirations, he cannot picture to himself | by means of a priesthood upon earth, 
the bliss and the beauty of such a scene, | standing forth to their prostrate and su- 
mellowed as it is by the distance, per- perstitious worshippers, and exercising 
haps, of half a century, and mingled | over them all the power of Satan trans- 
with the dearest recollections of parents, | formed into an angel of light, might he 
and sisters, and other kindred now moul-| delude whole successive generations from 
dering in the dust, he cannot recall for a | the pure and primitive religion of their 
moment this fond, though faded imagery, | forefathers. And after, perhaps, a whole 
without sighing in the bitterness of his| dreary millennium of guilt and of dark- 
heart, after the good old way. ness, may some gifted individual arise, 
Now, what applies to one indi-} who can look athwart the gloom, and 
vidual, may apply to the species. As} descry the purer and the better age of 
the world grows older, it may, by) Scripture light which lies beyond it 
some sweeping obliteration of all its an-| And as he compares all the errors and 
cient documents, lapse again into second the mazes of that vast labyrinth into 


244 


which so many generations had been led 
vy the jugglery of deceivers, with that 
simple but shining path which conducts 
the believer unto glory, let us wonder 
not that the aspiration of his pious and 
patriotic heart should be for the good old 
way. 

We now see wherein it is that the 
modern might excel the ancient. In re- 
gard to experimental truth, he can be as 
much wiser than his predecessors, as the 
veteran and the observant sage is wiser 
than the unpractised stripling, to whom 
the world is new, and who has yet all to 
learn of its wonders and of its ways. 
The voice that is now emitted from the 
schools, whether of physical or political 
science, is the voice of the world’s anti- 
quity. The voice emitted from the 
same schools, in former ages, was the 
voice of the world’s childhood, which 
then gave forth in lisping utterance the 
conceits and the crudities of its young 
unchastened speculation. But in regard 
to things not experimental, in regard 
even to taste, or to imagination, or to 
moral principle, as well as to the stable 
and unchanging lessons of divine truth, 
there is no such advancement. For the 
perfecting of these we have not to wait 
the slow processes of observation and 
discovery, handed down from one gene- 
ration to another. ‘hey address them- 
selves more immediately to the spirit’s 
eye; and just as in the solar light of day, 
our forefathers saw the whole of visible 
creation as perfectly as we—so in the 
lights, whether of fancy or of conscience, 
or of faith, they may have had as just 
and vivid a perception of Nature’s beau- 
ties; or they may have had as ready a 
discrimination, and as religious a sense 
of all the proprieties of life ; or they may 
have had a veneration as solemn, and an 
acquaintance as profound, with the mys- 
terles-,of revelation, as the. men of our 
modern and enlightened day. And, ac- 
cordingly, we have as sweet or sublime 
an eloquence, and as transcendant a 
poetry, and as much both of the exquis- 
ite and noble, in all the fine arts, and a 
morality as delicate and dignified, and to 
‘rown the whole, as exalted and as in- 
formed a piety in the remoter periods of 
the world as among ourselves, to whom 
the latter ends. of the world have come. 


THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 


[SERM. 


vantage ground than many of the gene- 
rations that have gone by. But neither 
are we on lower vantage ground. We 
have access to the same objects. Weare 
in possession of the same faculties. And, 
if between the age in which we live, 
and some bright and by-gone era, there 
should have intervened the deep and the 
long-protracted haze of many centuries, 
whether of barbarism in taste, or of 
profligacy in morals, or of superstition 
in Christianity, it will only heighten, by 
comparison, to our eyes, the glories of 
all that is excellent; and if again 
awakened to light and to liberty, it will 
only. endear the more to our hearts the 


good old way. 


We now proceed to the application of 
these preliminary remarks. We do not 
think that we presume too much, when 
we address ourselves to the majority of 
those who are here present, as if they — 
were the friends and adherents of the 
Church of Scotland; and we shall en- 
deavour, on the principles which we have 
just attempted to expound, first to appre- 
ciate the titles of the founders of that 
church to the respect and the confidence 
of its disciples—and, secondly, to con- 
sider how this respect should be quali- 
fied, so as not to degenerate into idol- 
atry. 

You will now perceive, how, in re- 
gard to all experimental truth, the mod- 
erns, furnished as they are with a larger 
and more luminous book of experience, 
should, in the language of the Psalmist, 
“understand more than the ancients,— 
and, secondly, how in regard to all theo- 
logical truth, furnished as they are, with 
the same unaltered and unalterable book 
of revelation, they should at least under- 
stand as much as the ancients. Some 
would on this ground too, contend for 
the superiority of our modern day, be- 
cause of the successive labours of that 
criticism wherewith the Sacred Volume 
is not amended or added to, but where- 
with the obscurities which are upon the 
face of it, may. be gradually cleared 
away. We do not lay great stress on 
this observation, for, without depreciat- 
ing the worth of Scriptural criticism, we 
cannot admit that all the additional light 
which is evolved by it, bears more than a 


In respect to these, we are not on higher | very small fractional value to the breadth 


XXXI.] 


and the glory of that effulgence which 
shines from our English Bible, on the 
mind of an ordinary peasant. On either 
supposition, however, the most enlight- 
ened of our moderns, is, in regard to the 
one book, on fully equal, and in regard 
to the other, on a far higher vantage 
ground than the most enlightened of our 
ancients; and while it is our part to be 
as profoundly submissive as they, to all 
that has been said, and to all that has 
been done, by the God who is above us, 
here we sit in the entire right of our own 
idependent judgment on all that has 
been said, and on all that has been done, 
by the men who have gone before us. 
The great service then for which the 
Scottish and other reformers, in their re- 
spective countries, deserve the gratitude 
of posterity, is not that they shone upon 
us with any original light of their own, 
but simply that they cleared away a most 
grievous obstruction which had stood for 
ages, and intercepted from the eyes of 
mankind the light of the book of revela- 
tion. This they did, by asserting, in be- 
half of God, the paramount authority of 
his Scripture over the belief and the con- 
sciences of men ; and asserting in behalf 
of man, his right of private judgment on 
the doctrine and the information which 
are contained in the oracles of God. 
This right of private judgment, you will 
observe, is a right maintained not against 
the authority of God, but against the 
authority of men, who have either added 
to the oracles of God, or who have as- 
sumed to themselves the office of being 
the infallible and ultimate interpreters of 
his word. It was against this that our 
reformers went forth and _ prevailed. 
Theirs was a noble struggle for the 
spiritual liberties of the human race, 
against the papacy of Rome, and nobly 
did they acquit themselves of this holy 
‘warfare. At first it was a fearful con- 
flict; when, on the one side, there was 
the whole strength of the secular arm, 
and, on the other, a few obscure but de- 
voted men, whose only weapons were 
truth and prayer, and suffering constancy. 
And it is a cheering thought, and full of 
promise both for the moral and _ political 
destinies of our world, that, after all, the 
great and the governing force which 
men ultimately obey, is that of Opinion 
—that the cause cf truth and righteous- 


THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 


245 


ness, cradled by the rough hand of per- 
secutors, and nurtured to maturity amid 
the terrors of fierce and fiery intolerance, 
is sure at length to overbear its adversa- 
ries—that contempt, and cruelty, and the 
decrees of arbitrary power, and the fires, 
of bloody martyrdom, are but its stepping 
stones to triumph—that in thé heat and 
the hardihood of this sore discipline, it, 
grows like the indestructible seed, and at 
last forces its resistless way toa superig 
ority and a strength, before which the 
haughtiest potentates of our world are 
made to tremble. The reformation by 
Luther is far the proudest example of this 
in history—who, with nought but a sense 
of duty and the energies of his own un- 
daunted heart to sustain him, went forth 
single-handed against the hosts of a most 
obdurate corruption that filled all Europe 
and had weathered the lapse of many 
centuries—who, by the might of his own 
uplifted arm, shook the authority of that 
high pontificate which had held the 
kings and the great ones of the earth in 
thraldom—who, with no other weapons 
than those of argument and Scripture, 
brought down from its peering altitude, 
that old spiritual tyranny, whose head 
reached unto heaven, and which had the 
entrenchments of deepest and strongest 
prejudice thrown around its base. When 
we can trace a result so magnificent as 
this to the workings of one solitary spirit 
—when the breast of Luther was capable 
of holding the germ or the embryo of the 
greatest revolution which the world ever 
saw—when we observe how many kin- 
dred spirits caught from his the fire of 
that noble inspiration by which it was 
actuated, and how powerfully the voice 
which he lifted up in the midst of Ger- 
many, was re-echoed to from the distant 
extremities of Europe by other voices,— 
O! let us not despair of truth’s omnipo- 
tence, and of her triumph; but rest as- 
sured that, let despots combine to crush 
that moral energy which they shall never 
conquer, or to put out that flame which 
they shall find to be inextinguishable, 
there is now a glorious awakening abroad 
upon the world, and, in despite of all 
their policy, the days of its perfect light 
and its perfect liberty are coming. 

Our own Knox was one in the like- 
ness of Luther ; and, perhaps, by nature 
of a firmer and hardier temperament 


246 


thar he, For it must be observed of the 
German reformer, that there were about 
him a certain softness and love of tran- 
quillity, which inclined him more to the 
shade of a studious retirement, than to 
the high places of society. The truth is, 
that most gladly would he have hid him- 
self in some academic bower from the 
strifes and the storms of the open world ; 
and sore was the struggle in his bosom 
ere he did adventure himself into the 
scenes of controversy from which he 
afterwards came off so victorious. It was 
fortunate for mankind, that though his 
love of peace was strong, his sense of 
duty was yet stronger, and that with a 
force which he felt to be imperious, it 
bore him through the heats and the haz- 
ards of his great warfare. Still it was at 
the expense of a most painful conflict 
with the tender and the tremulous sensi- 
bilities of his nature ; for really, the man’s 
native element was contemplation ; and 
then did he find himself at his most ap- 
propriate exercise when by the weapons, 
whether of a spiritual or literary cham- 
pionship, he fought, as he did, most man- 
fully, the battles of the faith. Our coun- 
tryman was altogether of sterner mood ; 
and with acertain rigidity of fibre which 
the other had not, could better sustain 
himself in the fray, and the onset, and 
the close encounter of more immediate 
assailants. It has been said of him, in 
virtue of his impregnable nervous sys- 
tem, that he never feared the face of clay, 
and thus was he admirably fitted for the 
conduct of a high enterprise, amid the 
terrors of scowling royalty, and among 
‘the turbulent nobles of our land. Each 
had a part to sustain; and each was sin- 
gularly qualified by Providence. for the 
performance of it,—the one, from his 
closet to spread the light of the principles 
of reformation over the face of Christen- 
don—the other, in the boisterous _poli- 
tics of a court, or by the energy of his 
living voice from the pulpit, to do the ex- 
ecutive work of reformation in one of the 
provinces of Christendom. It is obvious 
that Luther’s was the superior station of 
the two; and that to him Knox was snb- 
ordinate. And it is well in this bustling 
age, when there is so much of demand 
from the public functionaries of our 
Church for the labour of mere handi- 
work, and so little for that of literary 


THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 


[SERM. 


preparation—it is well to notice, in the — 
present instance, that while the practical 
talent of Knox carried him to such high 
ascendancy over the affairs of men, the 
pure and the powerful intellect of Luther 
won for him a higher ascendancy still— 
that through the medium of the press, 
and by virtue of scholarship alone, he 
bore with greater weight than did all his 
coadjutors on the living history of the 
world—and that, after all, it was from the 
cell of studious contemplation, from the 
silent depository of a musing and medi- 
tative spirit, there came forth the strong- 
est and the most widely felt impulse on 
the mechanism of human society. 

This then is ‘the first great service 
which our Reformers achieved for man- 
kind, even freedom of access to the Scrip- 
tures of truth, and the right of private 
judgment, explained as we have already 
done over the contents of it. The 
second, which springs immediately from 
the first, but which deserves a separate 
consideration, is a theology not created 
by them, but a theology evolved by them 
and most eminently subservient both to 
the peace and the holiness of individuals, 
and to the general virtues of the world. 

In Milner’s Church History (a book 
that I would commend to the perusal of . 
every devout and desirous Christian) we 
have a deeply interesting narrative of 
those mental processes through which 
Luther did at length find rest to his soul. 
There was nought whatever in all the 
penances of that laborious superstition 
wherein he had been educated, that could 
bring peace to his conscience, deeply 
stricken as it was by a sense of guilt, and 
of the holiness and awful majesty of 
that Being against whom he had offended. 
The Spirit of God seems, in the first in- 
stance, to have convinced him, and that 
most pungently and most profoundly, of 
the malignity of sin; and then it was that 
he felt how, in the whole round of the ob- 
servances and absolutions of the Church 
of Rome he could méet with no adequate 
Saviour. Meanwhile the law pursued 
him with its exactions and its terrors, and 
long and weary was the period of his 
Spirit's agitations ere he arrived at that hid- 
ing-place in which alone he could confi- 
dently feel that he was safe. He experi- 
enced, in regard to all the -eremonies of 
that. corrupt ritual in which he had been 


XXXI.] 


trained, what the apostle affirms in regard 


to the not impure, but still imperfect ritual | 


_of Moses. “It is not possible that the blood 
of bulls and of goats should take away 
sin.’ And thus, after the payment of all 
the debts and of all the drudgeries which 


THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 


247 


who takes hold, it proves the conductor 
along which the virtues of heaven, as 
well as the peace of heaven, descend up- 
on him. ‘This doctrine of grace is alto: 
gether a doctrine according to godliness, 
and as much fitted to emancipate the 


his church had ordained for transgres-| heart from the tyranny of sin as from 


sion, he felt that his sins were not taken 
away. He performed them, but he was 
not purged by them ; and soa sense of 
his unexpiated guilt still adhered to him, 
like an arrow sticking fast. It was then 
that he was led to ask for the old paths 
that he might find out the good way, and 
walk therein. And it was not till the 
light of Scripture, beaming with its own 
direct radiance, and powerfully reflected 
from the pages of Augustine, shone up- 
on his inquiry—not till he came within 
view of that great sacrifice which was 
made once for the sins of the world—not 
till the imaginary merit of human actions 
was all swept away, and there was sub- 
stituted in its place the everlasting righ- 
teousness which Christ hath brought in— 
not till he saw the free and welcome re- 
course which one and all have upon this 
righteousness by faith ; and how instead 
of springing from the toilsome but pollu- 
ted obedience of man upon earth, it comes 
graciously down in a descending minis- 
tration from heaven, upon those who be- 
lieve,—Not till then, could he behold the 
yeparation that was commensurate with 
the demand and the dignity of God’s 
violated law. Now was he made, and 
for the first time, to understand, that un- 
der the canopy of the appointed media- 
torship, he might*continue to hear the 
thunders of the law, yet feel that they 
rolled innocuous over him: and this, my 
brethren, was the place both of enlarge- 
ment and of quietness, where he found 
rest unto his soul. 

It is this doctrine of imputed righteous- 
ness that gives to the gospel message the 
character of a joyful sound, the going 
forth of which among all nations shall at 
length both reconcile and regenerate the 
world. That were indeed a gladsome 


land where this truth was preached with | 
acceptance and with power from all the | 


It is, in fact, the great bond of 


pulpits. 
It 


re-union between earth and heaven. 


upper sanctuary among the sinful men 








the terrors of that vengeance which is 
due to it. O, it is an idle fear, lest the 
preaching of the cross should spread the 
licentiousness of a proclaimed impunity 
among the people. All experience as- 
sures the opposite ; and that in parishes 
which are almost all plied with the free 
offers of forgiveness through the blood of 
a satisfying atonement, there we have 
the best and the holiest families. 

But it may be suspected, that although 
such a theology is the minister of peace, 
it cannot be the minister of holiness. 
Now, to those who have this suspicion, 
and who would represent the doctrine of 
justification by faith—that article as Lu- 
ther calls it, of a standing -or falling 
church—as adverse to the interests of 
virtue, I would put one question, and 
ask them to resolve it. How comes it 
that Scotland, which, of all the countries 
in Europe, is the most signalized by the 
rigid Calvinism of her pulpits, should 
also be the most signalized by the moral 
glory that sits on the aspect of her gene- 
ral population? How, in the name of 
mystery, should it happen that such a 
theology as ours is conjoined with per- 
haps the yet most unvitiated peasantry 
among the nations of Christendom ? 
The allegation against our Churches is, 
that in the argumentation of our abstract 
and speculative controversies, the people 
are so little schooled to the performance 
of good works. And how then is it, 
that in our courts of justice, when com- 
pared with the calendars of our sister 
kingdom, there should be so vastly less 
to do with their evil works? It is cer- 
tainly a most important experience, that 
in that country where there is the most 
of Calvanism, there should be the least 
of crime,—that what may be called the 
most doctrinal nation of Europe, should, 
at the same time, be the least depraved— 
and the land wherein people are most 


deeply imbued with the principles of sal- 
is like a cord of love let down from the | 


vation by grace, should be the least dis- 


‘tempered either by their weekday profli- 
who are below; and with every sinner | gacies, or their Sabbath profanations. 


248 


When Knox came over from the school 
of Geneva, he brought its strict, and, at 
that time, uncorrupted orthodoxy, along 
with him; and with it he pervaded all 
the formularies of that church which was 
founded by him; and not only did it 
flame abroad from all our pulpits, but, 
through our schools and our catechisms, 
it was brought down to the boyhood of 
our land; and from one generation to 
another, have our Scottish youth been 
familiarized to the sound of it from their 
very infancy ; and unpromising as such 
a system of tuition might be in the eye 
of the mere academic moralist to the 
object of building up a virtuous and well- 
doing peasantry, certain it is, that, as the 
wholesale result, there has palpably come 
forth of it the most moral peasantry im 
Europe notwithstanding. We know of 
great and grievous declensions, partly 
owing to the extension of our crowded 
cities being most inadequately followed 
up by such a multiplication of churches 
and parishes as might give fair scope to 
the energies of our ecclesiastical system ; 
and principally, we fear to a declension 
from that very theology which has been 
denounced as the enemy of practical 
righteousness. But on this last topic we 
forbear to detain you; for vastly rather 
than expatiate on the degeneracies of 
what may be termed the middle age of 
the Church of Scotland, we incline to re- 
joice in the symptoms of its bright and 
blessed revival; and would therefore 
only say, that should, in mockery of these 
anticipations, the people of our land fall 
wholly away from the integrity of their 
forefathers—should there come a great 
and general deterioration in the worth of 
our common people, it will only be be- 
cause preceded by a great and general 
deterioration in the zeal, and the doc- 
trines, and the services of our clergymen. 
And if ever the families of our beloved 
land shall have apostatised from the vir- 
tues of the olden time, it will lie at the 
door of pastors who have been unfaithful 
to their trust, and of pastors who have 
apostatised from the good old divinity of 
other days. 

But in this enumeration of Knox’s ser- 
vices to Scotland, we must now pass on 
from the theology of this great reformer, 
to what may be called certain arrange- 
ments of ecclesiastical polity, which, 


THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 


|SERM. 


through his means have been instituted in 
our land. And this is the subject, we 
think, upon which the schemes and the 
settlements of a comparatively younger 
age lie most open to the animadversions 
of a now older world; for, while a per- 
fect theology may be drawn at once from 
the now finished book of revelation, it is 
not a perfect ecclesiastical polity, but 
only one that admits of successive im- 
provements, which can be drawn from 
the yet unfinished, but constantly pro- 
gressive book of experience. On this 
eround, therefore, we shall consent to be 
enlightened by the venerable founder of 
our church, but we shall not consent to be 
enthralled by him; and, in fearlessly 
commenting both upon his excellencies 
and his errors, we feel ourselves to 
be only breathing in that element of lib- 
erty wherewith himself did impregnate 
the atmosphere of our now emancipated 
land—to be only following that noble ex- 
ample of independence which himself 
has bequeathed to us. 

But in this part of our exposition, we 
must be very far shorter than the magni-— 
tude of the theme would require; for it 
is the misfortune of almost every occa- 
sional sermon, that the topics wherewith. 
it stands associated, are far too unwield 
for one address—else we should have 
ventured to apply our introductory prin- 
ciples on the subject of ancient authorities 
and ancient times, more closely than we 
can now afford to the question, of that 
precise deference which is due to our 
illustrious Reformer. + We should have 
especially urged it upon you, that neither 
he nor any other of the venerable Found- 
ers of our establishment, shone upon us 
in their own radiance, but only by a 
light reflected upon us from the pure and 
primary radiance of Scripture—and that, 
in fact, the great service which they ren- 
dered to posterity, lay in the removal of 
those obstructions which stood between 
the truths of revelation, and the private 
independent judgment of men. It -is in 
virtue of their exertions, that each may 
now look to the Bible with his own eyes, 
and not with the eyes of another; and 
we only use the privilege which they 
have won for us, when we try even 
themselves, either by that book of revela- 


‘tion, which shines as brightly upon us as 


upon them, or by that book of experience 


XXX] 


to which every century is adding so 
many leaves, and which at present shines 
more brightly than ever on the men of 
our now older world. The man of the 
day that now is, if thoroughly and intelli- 
gently read in that book, is as much 
wiser than the man of a distant antiquity, 
as the hoary-headed sage is wiser thana 
striplng. And in utter reversal of the 
prevailing tendency to idolize the men of 
other days, as if they were the patriarchs 
of our species, we affirm, that the Lu- 
thers, and the Knoxes, and the Calvins, 
and the Zuingliuses of old, are but as the 
youths of this world’s history; and if 
there be any individuals now gifted with 
as great a degree of mental vigour and 
sagacity, they with a larger book of ex- 
perience before them, are, in truth, its 
bearded and its venerable patriarchs. 

We shall now, however, confine our- 
selves to a very few sentences about three 
distinct matters of ecclesiastical polity— 
and that chiefly as specimens of the way 
in which a man of great authority and 
reputation may be deferred to when we 
think that he is in the right; and be 
questioned, when we doubt that he is in 
the wrong. 

Our first, then, is a topic of the most 
cordial and unmixed eulogy. Knox was 
the chief compiler of the First Bock of 
Discipline, and to him we owe our pre- 
sent system of parochial education. By 
that scheme of ecclesiastical polity, a 
school was required for every parish ; 
and, had all its views been followed up, 
a college would haye been erected in 
every notable town. On this inestimable 
service done to Scotland we surely do not 
need to expatiate. ‘I'he very mention of 
it lights up an instant and enthusiastic 
approval in every bosom. And with all 
the veneration that is due on other grounds 
to our Reformer, we hold it among the 
proudest glories of his name, that it stands 
associated with an institution, which has 
spread abroad the light of a most beau- 
teous moral decoration throughout all the 
hamlets of our land, and is dear to every 
Scottish heart as are the piety and the 
worth of its peasant families. 

In the second topic, to which we shall 
advert, he was not so successful, but it 
argues not the less for his sagacity and 
his patriotism. We mean that contest, 
in which he failed, for the entire appro- 

32 


THE RESPECT DUE TO. ANTIQUITY. 





Q4S 


priation of the patrimony of the church 
to public objects, rather than that it should 
be seized upon by the rapacity of private 
individuals. On this matter I crave the 
reading of a short extract from the ad- 
mirable biography of Knox by Dr. M: 
Crie—a work that should be enshrined 
in every public, and which is not sought 
after as it deserves, if it have not also 
a place in every private library of Scot- 
land. 

“‘ Another source of distress to the Re- 
former, at this time, was a scheme which 
the courtiers had formed for altering the 
policy of the church, and securing to 
themselves the principal part of the ec- 
clesiastical revenues. This plan seems 
to have been concerted under the regen- 
cy of Lennox; it began to be put into 
execution during that of Mar, and was 
afterwards completed by Morton. We 
have already had an occasion to notice 
the aversion of many of the nobility ‘to 
the Book of Discipline, and the principal 
source from which this aversion sprung. 
While the Earl of Murray administered 
the government, he prevented any new 
encroachments upon the rights of the 
church ; but the succeeding regents were 
either less friendly to them, or less. able 
to bridle the avarice of the more power- 
ful nobles. Several of the richest bene- 
fices becoming vacant by the decease, or 
by the sequestration of the popish incum- 
bents who had been permitted to retain 
them, it was necessary to determine in 
what manner they should be disposed of 
for the future. The church had uni- 
formly required that their revenues should 
be divided, and applied to the support of the 
religious and the literary establishments ; 
but with this demand the courtiers were 
by no means disposed to comply. At the 
same time, the total secularization of them 
was deemed too bold a step; nor could 
laymen, with any shadow of consistency, 
or by a valid title, hold benefices which 
the law declared to be ecclesiastical. 
The expedient resolved on was, that the 
bishoprics and other livings should be 
presented to certain ministers, who, pre- 


‘vious to their admission, should make 


over the principal part of their revenues 

to such noblemen as had obtained the 

patronage of them from the court.” 
This most grievous error in the con- 


ne of the Scottish reformation, (but for 


250 


which Knox is not at all chargeable) is 
but little understood by the public at 
large, and in the statement of which 
therefore we do not expect to be greatly 
sympathized with. It was that compro- 
mise which took place between the ec- 
clesiastics and the nobles of our land ; 
and in virtue of which the former con- 


THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 


|SERM 


public functionary should be well paid 
for the doing of it. | 

The third topic to which we shall ad- 
vert, is that in which we hold Knox to 
have been in error—though precisely 
such an error as I think that the book of 
our now larger experience, in which so 
many lessons are inscribed since his day, 


curred, or rather were compelled to ac-|of the wisdom and efficacy of toleration, 


quiesce, in both our church and our 
literary establishments being shorn of 
their patrimony. The effect has been 
that a revenue, which might have been 
applied to the exigencies of an increasing 
population, now unprovided with the 
means of Christian instruction ; or which 
might have been applied to uphold, in 
strength and in splendour, those Univer- 
sities of our land, which both in their 
endowments and their architecture are 
fast hastening to degradation and decay 
—is now wholly secularized, and serves 
but to augment the expense and the 
luxury of private families. And in the 
face of all that contempt and that com- 
mon-place which the beneficed priest- 
hood of every establishment has to en- 
dure, we scruple not to say, that what 
Knox by his sagacity foresaw, and which 
he strove in vain to make head against, 
has been most fearfully realized,—and 
that the high interests both of religion 
and of learning suffer at this day, under 
the effects of that unprincipled, that truly 
Gothic spoliation. 

We are aware of a fashionable politi- 
cal economy in this our day, which, for 
the sake of leaving untouched the splen- 
dour and the Juxury of our higher 
classes, would suffer the public function- 
aries to starve; and in opposition to 
which we at present affirm (for we have 
no time to’ argue), that in the progress 
both of landed and of mercantile wealth, 
both the officers of religion and the offi- 
cers of education have been left immea- 
surably too far behind in the career of 
an advancing society. On this topic we 
make common cause with all other pub- 
lic functionaries ; and, in despite of the 
popular outcry against it, we hold, that 
from the highest judges in the land, to 
the humblest teacher of a village school, 
there ought to be one great and general 
augmentation—it being our first principle 
that every public functionary should do 
his duty well; and our second, that every 


Sa Ser ntfs ss SSS tC 





would have expelled from his mind. 

It was an error, however, not confined 
to the reformers of any particular coun- 
try ; for, in truth, it was shared alike 
among all the theologians of all the de- 
nominations in Christendom. It con- 
sisted in the imagination, and it was 
an imagination quite universal in these 
days, that Christianity could not flour- 
ish, nay, that it could not exist, save 
in the one framework of one certain and 
defined ecclesiastical constitution; and 
hence with us, that there could be no 
light and no efficacy in the ministrations 
of the gospel, unless they were conducted 
according to the forms, and in the strict 
model and frame-work of Presbytery. - 
And so, in the works of some of the 
older worthies of the Kirk of Scotland, 
we read about as often of black Prelacy, 
as we do of her who was arrayed in 
scarlet, and is the mother of all abomina- 
tions. Now, it is surely better that this 
extreme and exclusive intolerance is al- 
most wholly done away ; and better still 
it would be, if the two co-ordinate estab- 
lishments of our island, while they kept 
by their own respective frame-works, 
should acknowledge each of the other, 
that although by a different machinery, 
there may be the same right and velit” 
gious principle to animate the movements, 
and the same high capacities for religious 
usefulness with both; that if the one, 
perhaps, have more thoroughly leavened 
with Christianity the bulk of her popula- 
tion, the other is more signalized by the 
prowess of her sons, in the high walks 
of Christian scholarship; that m her 
Clarkes, and her Butlers, and her War- 
burtons, and her Hurds, and her Hors- 
leys, and her Paleys, and her Watsons, 
we behold the divines of a church, which 
of all others has stood the foremost, and 
wielded the mighttest polemic arm in the 
battles of the Faith. 

I entreat to be forgiven if I make one 
allusion more, if not to ah error on the 


_ XXx1J THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. — Q51 


part of our old reformers, at .east to a{ centuries have rolled on, all the influences 
peculiarity of theirs, which is not, to say | whether of persuation or of power, have 
the least of it, so authoritatively enjoined | been idly thrown away on the firm, the 
by the book ‘of God's revelation, as to| impracticable countenance of an agerieved 
stand exempted from all charge and reck- | population. 

oning on the part of those who, in our| But we gladly hasten away from all 
own modern day, have at least the benefit | these topics, on some of w hich, indeed, 
of a larger and more luminous book of | we ought not to have touched, but for the 
experience than they had. We utterly | purpose of illustrating the distinction be- 





refuse to go along with the ancients of | tween those cases in which we should 
our church in their stern'and severe sen-| defer to the voice of antiquity, and prize 
timent of Prelacy And however right] its direction as the good old way; and 
they may have been in their sentiment “of | those cases in which the lesson that bath 
another denomination, yet still it is, atthe| come down to us from antiquity, should 
very least, a questionable thing, whether | be regarded in no other light than as the 
they were right in their stern and severe puerility of a then younger species, the 
treatment of Popery. After having} yet weak and unformed judgment of the 
wrested from Popery its armour of intol.| world’s boy-hood. The light of experi- 
erance, was it right to wield that very| ence which feebly glimmers at the outset 
armour against the enemy that had fallen? | of History, brightens onward in its pro- 
After having laid it prostrate by the use| gress. But the same does not hold of the 
alone of a spiritual weapon, was it right} light of revelation, which shone with as 
or necessary, in order to keep it prostrate, pure and as clear a radiance on the pa- 
to make use of a carnal one ?—thus re-|triarchs of our church, as it hath since 
versing the characters of that warfare, | done on any of its succeeding generations. 
which Truth had sustained, and with| Nay, it is a possible thing, ‘that in the 
such triumph, against Falsehood : and| ages which followed the first establish- 
vilifying the noble cause by an associate | ment of Presbytery in Scotland, there 
so unseemly, as that which the power of | may have been deviations from the spirit 
the state can make to bear on the now) and simplicity of Scripture; that the 
disarmed and subjugated minority. Surely | pride of intellect, and of human specula- 
the very strength which won for Protes-| tion, may have carried it high against 
tantism its ascendancy in these realms is | that authoritative truth, which hath come 
competent of itself to preserve it; and} down to our world from the upper sanc- 
if argument and Scripture alone have/|tuary; that from the exercise of a care- 
achieved the victory over falsehood, why | less and a corrupt patronage, many of 
not confide to argument and Scripture our parishes may have been exposed to 
alone the maintenance of the truth? It| the withering influence of a careless and 
is truly instructive to mark, how, on the| a corrupt clei srgy ; that thus, in the shape 
* moment that the forces of the statute-book | of cold and heartless apathy, a moral 
were enlisted on the side of Protestant-| blight, or mildew, may have descended 
ism, from that moment Popery, armed] on our land; and that, what with a mea- 
with a generous indignancy against its| gre theology on the one hand, and an ex- 
oppressors, put on that moral strength, | tinct or nearly expiring zeal on the other, 
which persecution always gives to every | there may have been an utter degeneracy 
cause that is at once honoured and sus-| from that golden period, when the truths 
tained by it O, if the friends of religious | of the Bible shone full upon many an 
liberty had but kept by their own spiritual | understanding, and the spirit of the Bible 
weapons, when the cause was moving| animated many a desirous and devoted 
onward in such prosperity, and with such| heart, It is not that the wisdom of expe- 
triumph! But when they threw aside| rience was greater then than it is now, 
argument, and brandished the ensigns of | but it is that the wisdom of faith and piety 
authority, then it was that truth felt the; was greater then than it is now, that we 

virtue go out of her; and falsehood, in-| should so much ameliorate our present 
spired with an energy before unknown,|age by calling back the genius of the 
planted the unyielding footstep, and put olden time. And did we but revert as 
on the resolute defiance. And now that | before to the strict guidance and authority 


252 


of Revelation ; did we, renouncing our 
own imaginations, make our submissive 
appeal to the Law and to the Testimony; 
did we only suffer the word of God to 
carry it at all times over the wayward 
fancies of men, and so recur to the apos- 
tolic humility, and the apostolic zeal, of 
former periods—this, this is what is 
meant in our text by the good old way. 
In conclusion, let me now address you 
as members of the Church of Scotland, 
which in principle is essentially Protest- 
ant; and which, though like other 
churches it has its articles and its formu- 
laries of doctrine, yet wants no such dis- 
cipleship as that which is grounded on 
blind submission to her authority—but 
only the discipleship of those, who in the 
free exercise of their judgment and their 
conscience, honestly believe her doctrine 
to be grounded on the authority of the 
word of God. Both her Catechism and 
Confession of faith have been given to the 
public with note and comment, it is true, 
but with note and comment that consist 
exclusively of Bible texts; and so, like 
apples of gold in pictures of silver, they 
offer a list of dogmata, but of dogmata 
set, as it were, or embossed in Scripture. 
The natural depravity of man; his 
need both of a regeneration and of an 
atonement ; the accomplishment of the 
one by the efficacy of a divine sacrifice, 
and of the other by the operation of a 
sanctifying spirit ; the doctrine that a sin- 
ner is justified by faith, followed up, most 
earnestly and incessantly followed up, 
through the pulpits of our land, by the 
doctrine that he is judged by works; the 
righteousness of Christ as the alone foun- 
dation of his meritorious claim to heaven, 
but this followed up by his own personal 
righteousness us the indispensable prepa- 
ration for heaven’s exercises and heaven’s 
joys; the free offer of pardon even to 
the chief of sinners, but this followed up 
by the practical calls of repentance, with- 
out which no orthodoxy can save him; 
the amplitude of the gospel invitations, 
and, in despite of all that has been so 
unintelligently said about our gloomy and 
relentless Calvanism, the wide and unex- 
cepted amnesty that is held forth to every 
creature under heaven, so as that the 
message of reconciliation may be made 
to circulate round the globe, and the 
overtures of welcome and good will from 


THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 


[SERM. 


the mercy seat above, be affectionately 
urged on all the individuals of all the 
families of earth below—these are the 
main credenda of a church that has oft 
been reproached for its hard and unfeel- 
ing theology—but nevertheless, a theolo- 
gy which, deeply seated as it still is in 
the affections of our peasantry, hath ap- 
proved itself by their virtues and their 
general habits, to be, after all, the fittest 
basis on which to sustain the moral 
worth and the moral energies of the 
nation. 

In adhering then to such a church and 
to such a creed, you adhere to what we 
have no hesitation in characterising as 
the good old way of your forefathers— 
not the less dear, we trust, to many of 
you, that you have now separated from 
that interesting land, and perhaps look 
back through the dim and distant recol- 
lection of many years, to the days of 
your cherished and well-taught boyhood. 
In this house of wider accommodation, a 
far larger number of our countrymen 
than before, can realize the services of a 
Scottish Sabbath.’ And, when we think 
of the constant accessions which are 
making to this number, and that too, by 
the yearly influx of exposed and unpro- 
tected youth into this vast metropolis, the 
moral importance of such an erection as 
the present rises above all computation. 
We cannot look indeed to those who 
have recently quitted the parental roof, 
and now in the open world are in the 
midst of its snares and its fearful expo- 
sures, without regarding it as the most 
affecting of all spectacles, when any cne 
of them gives up the comparative inno- 
cence of his tender years, and thence 
passes into the hardihood and the know- 
ing depravity of vice. In the whole com- 
pass of nature, there is nota wreck more 
lamentable, or which presents an object 
of more distressful contemplation, than 
does the ruin of youthful modesty. And 
the flower that withers upon its stalk, and 
all whose blushing graces have now 
vanished into the loathsomeness of vilest 
putrefaction, is but the faint emblem of so 
sad an overthrow. ‘That indeed is one 
of the darkest transitions in the history 
of man, when he exchanges the simpli- 
cities of his early home for the riot, and 
the intemperance, and the daring excesses 
that are acted in haunts of profligacy— 


XXX1] 


when by the loud laugh of his forerun- 
ners in guilt, all his purposes of virtue 
are overborne; and he is at length 
tempted, among the urgencies and the 
contaminations of surrounding example, 
to cast his principle and his purity away 
from him. Be assured that, in the wild 
and lurid gleams of frantic dissipation, 
there is nought that can compensate for 
the calm, the beauteous lustre, which 
some.have left behind you in the abode 
.of domestic piety. And therefore, now 
that you have departed from the hallowed 
influences of an atmosphere so pure and 
so kindly, let me entreat you, by all the 
high interests which belong to you as im- 
mortal creatures, that you forget not the 
solemnity of a father’s parting advice, 
that you forget not the tenderness of a 
mother’s prayers. 

One of the likeliest preservatives of 
conduct through the week, is a powerful 
religious application to the conscience 
upon the Sabbath. And we repeat it as 
matter of high gratulation to our Scot- 
tish families, that in a place so capacious 
~ as this, the lessons of Christianity are to 
be ministered according to the forms of 
our church, and by one of the most dis- 
tinguished of her sons—a minister who 
has ever counted it a small matter to be 
judged of man’s judgment, but who is 
solemnized by the thought that He who 
judgeth him is God:—a minister who 
combines with the utmost fearlessness for 
the creature, the utmost docility and 
reverence for the Creator,—one whose 
talents and whose colossal strength of 
mind could have borne him aloft to the 
most arduous heights of science, but who 
now holds it his more becoming, as in- 
deed it is his more dignified part, to’ give 
himself wholly to the studies and the pur- 
suits of sacredness,—one who is willing 
to spend and be spent for the eternity of 
his people, and who, after having sur- 
vived the buffetings of a whole world of 
gainsayers, now sits down amongst you 
with the well-earned attachment of the 
thousands who know his worth, and who 


THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 


253 


have been awakened by his ministry. 
His are not the short-lived triumphs of a 
mere popular empiricism, but the fairly 
won distinction of one who possesses the 
stamina of worth and endurance, being 
alike gifted with great principle, and with 
great power. But it is not distinction 
that he seeks; for intent upon higher 
objects, we trust the paramount aim of 
his spirit to be, not his own glory, but the 
glory of the master whom he serves ; 
and that actuated by motives which the 
world can neither understand nor sym- 
pathise with, he has received of that 
grace from above, which is given only to 
the humble, and the want of which 
would stamp an utter impvtency on the 
ablest and most splendid ministrations. 
If thus upholden, he has nothing to fear. 
Already have the outrages of a rude and 
licentious press broken their strength 
upon him, and are dissipated. And now 
that the fume, and the turbulence, and 
the uproar of this temporary warfare 
have been all cleared away, does he 
stand forth with a moral dignity on his 
part, and a warranted confidence upon 
yours, which, under God, are the best 
guarantees for the success of his future 
labours. 

May the spirit of all grace abundantly 
strengthen and uphold him in the ardu- 
ous office to which he has been called. 
May living water from the sanctuary 
above descend on the ministrations of the 
word here below; and both fertilizing 
the soil of your hearts, and fructifying 
the good seed which is deposited there, 
may you be made to abound in all the 
fruits of righteousness. May this House 
in future years be the scene of many 
sound and scriptural conversions ; and 
never, till in the course of generations its 
walls have mouldered into decay, and its 
minarets have fallen, never may it ceas¢ 
either in our own day, or in the days of 
our children’s children, to be a gate to 
Heaven, a place of busy and successful 
preparation for Heaven’s exercises, and 
Heaven’s joys. 


254 


EFFECT OF MAN’S WRATH IN RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. 


[SERM 


SERMON XXXII. 


The Effect of Man's Wrath in the Agitation of Religious Controversies. 


“The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”—James i. 20, 


Wirnoutattempting, what weshould feel 
to be impossible within the limits of one 
discourse, to expound the principle of our 
text in all its generality, we shall satisfy 
ourselves with adverting to but one or 
two special applications of it. We shall 
first consider the effect of man’s wrath 
when interposed between the call of the 
gospel, and the minds of those to whom 
the gospel is addressed—and, secondly, 
consider the effect of man’s wrath when 
interposed between a right and a wrong 
denomination of Christianity. 


I. You are all aware of there being 
much wrathful controversy on the part 
of men relative to the gospel of Jesus 
Christ, wherein the righteousness of God 
is said, by the apostle, to be revealed from 
faith to faith. ‘To understand the way in 
which this great message from heaven to 
earth may be darkened, and altogether 
transformed out of its native character, 
by the conflict and controversy of its in- 
terpreters, we ask you to conceive the 
effect, if a message of most free and un- 
qualified kindness, from some earthly 
superior, were just to be handled in the 
same way. We may imagine that in 
his bosom, there is nought but the utmost 
good-will to us, in all its truth, and in all 
its tenderness; and that he sends forth 
the expression of it in writing, on pur- 
pose that we may read and may rejoice ; 
and that if we but perused this precious 
document with the simplicity of children, 
we could not fail to be gladdened by the 
assurances of a love which shone most 
directly and most unequivocally from all 
its pages. But instead of this, we may. 
further imagine, that between our. minds 
and all the grace and goodness of this 
communication, there should spring up a 
whole army of expounders—and that in 
the pride, and the heat, and the bitterness 
of argument, they fell out among them- 
selves—and that all were vasily too much 


engrossed, each with his own special un 
derstanding about the terms of the mes- 
sage, ever to meet together in harmony, 
and in mutual felicitation, on the broad 
and unquestionable truths of it. Is there 
no danger, we ask, amid the acerbities 
of such a thickening warfare, that men 
should lose sight of the mildness and the 
mercy that lay in that embassy of peace 
by which it had been stirred? Is it not 
a possible thing, that many an humble 
spirit, whom the soft and the kind affec- 
tion of the original message might else 
have wakened into confidence, shall feel 
itself disturbed and bewildered in the 
fierce and the fiery agitations of such an 
atmosphere as this? When we hear 
from one quaiter, that such is the import 
of the message, and that we shall forfeit 
all the beneficence which it proffers, un- 
less we so understand it,—when, in ve- 
hement resistance to this, we hear of 
another import, and even denounced upon 
them who refuse it, the wrath of Him 
whose good-will is the whole burden of 
the now disputed communication,—when 
moreover a third, and a different inter- 
pretation, is listed against each of the two 
former, and supported with acrimony, 
and backed by the same menaces of a 
displeasure on the part of that universal 
friend, who had set himself forth in the 
benignest attitude, and lifted the widely- 
sounding call of reconciliation,—Certain 
it is, that when the mind of an inquirer 
is involved among these, it is occupied 
with topics of another description, and 
another character altogether, from that 
of the calm and the kind benevolence 
which resides at the fountain-head, and 
which would have radiated from thence 
on the hearts of a delighted people, were 
it not for the intervening turbulence that 
serves to hide, or at leasttodarken it. It 
is thus, that by the angry and the lower- 
ing passions of these middle men, an ob: 
scuration might be shed on all the good- 


{XXII} 


ness and the grace which sit on the brow 
of their superior ; and that when stunned 
in the uproar of their sore controversy 
with the challenge, and the recrimination, 
and the boisterous assertion of victory, 
and all the other clamours of heated par- 
tizanship—that these might altogether 
drown the soft utterance of that clemency 
whereof they are the interpreters, and 
cause the gentler sounds that issue from 
some high seat of munificence and mercy 
to be altogether unheard. 

Now, it is altogether worthy of our 
consideration, whether such might not be 
the effect of those manifold controversies 
that have risen, in regard to the terms 
and the truths of that gospel message 
which has come down from the sanctuary 
above to the men of our lower world. 
The love for mankind which resides in 
the bosom of the unseen and eternal God, 
is there most distinctly asserted ; and 
there is also most full and frequent deela- 
ration of His willingness to receive us ; 
and in every possible way of entreaty, 
and protestation, and kind encourage- 
ment, does He manifest the forth-puttings 
of His longing affection towards us ; and, 
rather than not reclaim us hapless wan- 
derers to that blessedness with Himself, 
from which we had so widely departed, 
He lavished all the resources both of 
His omnipotence and of His wisdom, on 
-a scheme of reconciliation, by which even 
the guiltiest of offenders might draw 
nigh; and He sent the Son of His ever- 
lasting regards from Heaven to earth, 
who had to surrender all His glories, and 
to suffer all the vengeance of an outraged 
Jaw, ere He could move away the ob- 
structions which stood between sinners 
and the mercy-seat; and, after having 
thus laboriously framed a pathway of 
access to that throne of righteousness, 
which is now turned into a throne of 
grace, did he lift up a voice of invitation 
to walk in it—a voice so diffusive, that it 
may go abroad over all,and yetso pointed, 
that it singles out and specializes each of 
the human family ; and now, with all the 
soul and sincerity of a Father's earnest- 
ness, does He ask, in the hearing of that 
world He has done so much to save, 
“What more could I have done for my 
vineyard that I have not done for it?” 
Such is the character of that direct, that 
primary demonstration, which has been 


EFFECT OF MAN’S WRATH IN RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. 


sp eg tcc pie te a 


255 


made to us from heaven’ Such the felt 
love for our species which is honestly 
and genuinely there; and well, we re- 
peat, is it worthy of our full considera- 
tion, whether, across the dark, the trou- 
bled medium of human controversy, the 
sight of it is not tarnished to the eye— 
the sound of it, thus mingled with notes 
of harshest discord, is not lost upon the 
ear. 

In one place, the gospel is called the 
ministration of righteousness—in another, 
the gift which it offers, is called the gift 
of righteousness ; and they are said to 
possess or to receive the righteousness of 
God, who have laid their confident hold 
upon that offer. But while the direct 
view of a benignant and a beseeching 
God, as He urges the offer upon their 
acceptance, 18 so well: fitted to charm 
them into confidence, is there nothing, 
we ask, in the din of this posterior and 
subordinate controversy, that is fitted to 
disturb it? Surely the noise that arises 
from the wars and the wranglings of 
earth, falls differently upon the hearing 
to that sweetest music which descended 
from the canopy that is over our heads, 
and which accompanied the declaration 
of good-will to us in heaven. And so, 
altogether, that theology which shines 
immediate from his Bible on the heart of 
the unlettered peasant, may come with 
altered expression and effect on the mind 
of the scholastic, afier it has been trans- 
muted into the theology of the portly and 
polemic folio. The Sun of Righteous- 
ness may shed a mild and beauteous lus- 
tre upon the one, which, to the eye of the 
other, is obscured in the turbulence of 
rolling vapours, in the lurid clouds of ar. 
angry and unsettled sky. It is precisely 
thus, we fear, that the dogmatism on the 
one hand, and the defiance upon the 
other, which are associated with the con 
flicts and the championship of our pro- 
fession, may have dimmed, to the vision 
of those who are below, the face of the 
benign and the beautiful sanctuary above ; 
and verily there is room for the question, 
whether, in this way too, we have not 
one exemplification of the text, that “the 
wrath of man worketh not the righteous- 
ness of God.” 

When God beseeches us to be recon- 
ciled to Him in Christ Jesus, there is 
placed before the mind one object of con: 


256 


templation. When man steps forward, 
and, in the pride or intolerance of ortho- 
doxy, denounces the fury of an incensed 
God on all who put not faith in the mer- 
its and the mediation of His Son, there is 
placed before the mind another and a dis- 
tinct object of contemplation. And just 
in proportion to the varieties of dogma- 
tism or debate, will the mind shift and 
fluctuate from one contemplation to an- 
other. Certain it is, that it must feel a 
different sort of affection, when directly 
engaged with the love of God in heaven, 
from what it does when tost and alterna- 
ted among the wrathful elements of hu- 
man controversy upon earth. It then 
breathes in another atmosphere; and the 
whole sense and savour of the encom- 
passing medium feel differently from be- 
fore. And still it comes to the same im- 
portant, but unhappy result, as if the mu- 
sic of the spheres had been drowned in 
the rude and resentful outcry of noises 
from beneath, and the ear had failed to 
catch the utterance of Heaven’s inspira- 
tion, because lost and overborne amid 
sounds of earthliness. It is thus that the 
native character of Heaven’s embass 
may at length be shrouded in subtle, but 
most effectual disguise, from the souls of 
men ; and the whole spirit and design of 
its munificent Sovereign be wholly mis- 
conceived by His sinful, yet much-loved 
children. We interpret the Deity by the 
hard and imperious scowl which sits on 
the countenance of angry theologians ; 
and in the strife and clamour of their 
fierce animosities, we forget the aspect 
of Him who is upon the throne, the 
bland and benignant aspect of that God 
who waiteth to be gracious. 

It is thus that men of highest respect in 
the Christian world have done grievous 
injury to the cause. Whether, we ask, 
would Calvin have found readier accept- 
ance for his own favourite doctrine of 
justification by the righteousness of Christ, 
(that only righteousness which God will 
accept in plea of our meritorious claim to 
the kingdom of heaven, and therefore 
called the righteousness of God,)—wheth- 
er was it likelier that he should have 
gained the consent of men’s minds to this 
method of salvation, by declaring it in 
the spirit of gentleness, and with the ac- 
cents of entreaty, or by denouncing it in 
the spirit of an incensed polemic, and 


EFFECT OF MAN’S WRATH IN RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. 


[SERM. 


with that aspect which sits on his pages 
of severe and relentless dogmatism ? 
Would it not have strengthened his cause, 
had he, in propounding the message of 
reconciliation to his fellows upon earth, 
caught more upon his heart of the benig- 
nity which prompted the sending of that 
message from heaven ?—and had the eye, 
the voice, the manner of this able ex- 
pounder of the counsels of God represent- 
ed more of the kindness which presided 
over these counsels, of the compassion 
felt in the upper sanctuary, and which 
there originated the forth-going of the 
Saviour on our guilty world? Certain 
it is, that there is nought to conciliate the 
spirits of men to the doctrine of Calvin, 
all true, and all momentous as it is, 
in that wrath which glares upon us so re- 
peatedly from the dark and angry passa- 
ges of hisargument. That violence and 
vituperation, by which his Institutes are 
so frequently deformed, never do occur, 
we venture to affirm, but with an adverse 
influence on the minds of his readers, in 
reference to the truth which he espouses. 
In other words, that truth which, when 
couched in the language, and accompan- 
ied with the calls of affection, finds such 
welcome into the hearts of men, hath 
brought upon its propounders the reac- 
tion of stout indignant hostility, and just 
because of the stern intolerance where- 
with it has been proposed by them. This 
difference, in point of effect, between the 
meek and the magisterial style of instruc- 
tion, makes it of the utmost practical im- 
portance, that neither the pride nor the 
passions of men should mingle in the 
discussion, when labouring either with 
or against each other in the common 
pursuit of truth. For much has it pre- 
judiced the cause of truth in the world, 
that it has so oft been urged and insisted 
on with that wrath of man, which, most 
assuredly, worketh not the righteousness 
of God. 

And, though not strictly under our 
present head of discourse, there is one 
observation more which we feel it of im- 
portance to make, ere we pass on to the 
next division of our subject. Apart from 
the transforming effect of human wrath 
to give another hue, as it were, to the 
complexion of the Godhead, and another 
expression than that of its own native 
kindness, to the message which has pro- 


XXXII] 


EFFECT OF MAN’S WRATH IN RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES, 


257 


ceeded from Him, there is a distinct oper-| Heaven’s administration, the natural 


ation in the mind of an inquirer after re- 
ligious truth, which is altogether worthy 
of being adverted to. 

When the controversialist makes an 
angry demand upon us for our belief in 
some one of his positions, why, that posi- 
tion may be the offered and the gratuitous 
mercy of God in heaven, ana yet the 
whole charm of such a proposal may be 
dissipated, just through that tone and tem- 
per of intolerance in which it is expound- 
ed to us upon earth. When entertained 
in the shape of a direct announcement 
from the Father of mercies himself it 
comes with a wholly different impression 
upon the heart from what it does when 
entertained in the shape of an article that 
has been fashioned by a system-builder 
and then fulminated against us by the 
hand of human combatants. Al! that 
‘hope and that happiness which might 
else have beamed from the doctrine of 
grace, and that instantly, upon the’soul, 
may, as it were, be neutralized by the 
passionate and peremptory style of me- 
nace, wherewith faith in that doctrine is 
insisted upon. This we have already 
considered ; yet it must not be overlook- 
ed, that even for the hope and the happi- 
ness, faith is indispensable—that ere we 
‘can rejoice in any truth, or take the salu- 
tary impression of it upon our hearts, the 
truth must be believed in; and, indeed, 
the Bible itself accompanies its statements 
of doctrine with the exaction of our faith 
inthem. Without this faith in their 
reality, we can have no benefit from the 
objects of revelation. . Faith is the avenue 
through which they come into contact 
with the inner man, and by which alone 
they can obtain an influence over the af- 
fections. It is not to be wondered at, 
then, that possessing, as it does, such vi- 
tal importance, they who are in earnest 
after their salvation, should set such ex- 
treme value on the acquisition of faith. 
It is to them the pearl of great price. If, 
under the economy of the Law, men 
staked their eternity upon their works— 
under the economy of the Gospel, they 
stake their eternity upon their faith. 
The longings and the labourings of their 
hearts are now as much after the right 
belief, as formerly they were after the right 
‘obedience. And if while, “ Do this and 
live,” was the reigning principle of 
be 33 


anxiety for every expectant of Heaven. 
was to do properly—now that the reign- 
ing principle is, “ Believe and be saved," 
it is just as natural that it should be his 
intense and his unceasing anxiety to be- 
lieve properly. 

Now, observe the misdirection of 
which he is consequently in danger. It 
is apt to turn away his attention from the 
object of faith, to the act of faith. If faith 
be any where, it is in the mind, which is 
its proper habitation, its place of occu- 
pancy and settlement; and when he 
wants to ascertain the reality of his faith, 
it is indeed most natural that he should 
go in quest of the precious article through 
the secrecies of his dwelling-place. In 
other words, he looks inwardly, instead 
ofoutwardly. In place of gazing abroad 
among the objects of Revelation, and 
gathering from thence of that direct ra- 
diance which they might have streamed 
upon his soul, he seeks for the reflection 
of these objects within the soul itself; 
and, while so employed, his inverted eye 
shuts out all the illumination that is above 
him and around him. It is not by look- 
ing inwardly upon the eye’s own retina, 
but by looking openly and outwardly on 
the panorama of external nature, that we 
see the glories of the summer landscape. 
It is not by casting a downward regard 
on the tablet of vision, but by casting an 
upward regard on the starry firmament, 
that the wonders of the midnight sky be- 
come manifest to the beholder. And it 
is not, let it ever be remembered, it is 
not by a painful, by a probing scrutiny 
amongst the mysteries or the metaphy- 
sics of the inner man, that we admit the 
light of heaven into the soul. The 
peace and the joy of a believer do not 
spring from the traces which he finds to 
be within him. They emanate and 
they descend upon his heart, from the 
truths which are suspended over him. 
The work of faith consists not in looking 
to himself, but in looking to the recon- 
ciled countenance of God. He fetches 
its gladdening assurances, not from any 
light that has been struck out among the 
arcana of his own spirit, but from that 
great fountain of light, the Sun of Righ- 
teousness—the spiritual luminary which 
has arisen to the view of a sinful world, 
that every one who looketh may be 


258 


EFFECT OF MAN’S WRATH IN RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES, 


[SERM. 


saved. If you invert this order, if youtand yesterday, and for ever—the pro- 


look into yourself, without looking unto! 


Jesus, then you suspend the exercise of 
faith at the very time that you are trying 
to make sure of its existence. ou 
look the wrong way; and if by the 
former influence, even that of man’s 
wrath interposed between you and God’s 
kindness, you were disturbed out of confi- 
dence and of comfort—by the present in- 
fluence you are at least distracted away 
from them, even because the eye of the 
mind, when inverted upon itself, is avert- 


ed from the proper object of confi- 
dence. 

Let us never cease then the presentation 
of the object before you ; and, when visi- 
ted by fears, whether in looking to one’s 
own heart, and finding nought but dark- 
ness and destitution there; or on looking 
to the countenance of our fellow men, 
and beholding the menace and _ intoler- 
ance which are depicted there; let all be 
overborne by a direct view of the kind- 
ness of God. Let us lift ourselves above 
these turbid elements of earth, and be 
firmly and erectly confident of benevo- 
lence in Heaven. The good-will that is 
here towards the children of men, the’ 
soy that is felt there over every sinner 
who repenteth, the mild radiance there 
of the upper sanctuary, and the grace 
and the benignity which invest its glo- 
rious mercy-seat—these are the things 
which be above—these the stable reali- 
ties of that place where God sitteth on 
Eis throne, and where Christ sitteth at 
the right hand of God. Yonder is the 
region of light and of undoubted love ; 
and, whatever the mists or the obstruc- 
tions may be of this lower world, there 
is welcome, free, generous, unbounded 
welcome to one and all in the courts of 
the Eternal. The sun of our firmament 
is still as gorgeously seated in fields of | 
ethereal beauty and radiance as ever, 
when veiled from the sight of mortals 
by the lowering sky that is underneath. 
And so of the shrouded character of the 
Godhead, who, all placid and serene in 
the midst of elevation, is often mantled 
from human eye by the turbulence and 
the terror of those clouds which gather 
on the face of our gpiritual hemisphere. 
The unchangeableness of that Deity. 
whose compassions fail not—the consti- 
tuted Mediator, who is the same to-day, 


mises, which are yea and amen in Christ 
Jesus our Lord—the word of revelation — 
whereof it has been said, that heaven 
and earth shall pass away ere it can pass 
away-—T hese are the enduring, the un- 
extingnishable lights in the palace of our 
mild and munificent Sovereign, and in 
which all of us are called upon to rejoice. 
There may be no comfort to draw up 
from the darkling recesses of our own 
spirits ; but surely it may descend upon 
us in floods of brightness and beauty 
from a canopy so glorious. ‘There may 
be nought to gladden, in the wrathful 
and the warring controversies of the 
men who stand betwixt us and heaven; 
but in heaven itself there are notes of 
sweeter and kinder melody, and wel 
may we assure ourselves in the gratula 
tion that is awakened there over every - 
sinner who turns unto God. 

We are aware, all the time, that the 
truth, as it is in Jesus, must be sustained 
by argument—that this is one of the 
offices of the church militant upon earth, 
whose part it is to silence gainsayers ; 
and not only to contend, but to contend 
earnestly, for the faith which was deliy- 
ered unto the saints. For this service, 
we stand deeply indebted to the lore and 
the laborious authorship of other days— 
to the prowess of those dauntless theolo- 
gians, those gigantic men of war, who, 
skilled alike in the mysteries of the 
Bible, and in the mysteries of our com- 
mon nature, have, in the vast and vener- 
able productions which they left behind 
them, reared such bulwarks around the 
system of a sound and a settled ortho- 
doxy, as have never yet been stormed. 
Yet the most prominent article of that 
system—that which Luther denominated 
the test of a standing or a falling church 
—even the doctrine of imputed right 
eousness by faith—although argument 
be the weapon by which to defend it 
against the inroad of adversaries, it is 
not the weapon of penetration or of 
power by which to force a way for its say- 
ing reception into the heart of a believer. 
It is not in the clangour of arms, or in 
the shouts of victory, or in the heat and 
hurry of most successful gladiatorship 
—it is not thus that this overture of peace 
and pardon from heaven falls with effi- 
cacy upon the sinner’s ear. It is not se 


XXXII.) | 


much in the act of intellectually proving 
the truth of the doctrine, as in the act of 
proceeding upon its truth, when we af- 
fectionately urge the sinner to make it 
the stepping-stone of his ryturn to God 
~-it is then most generally that it be- 
comes manifest unto his conscience, and 
that he receives in love that which in 
the spirit of love and kindness has been 
offered to him. In a word, it is when 
the bearer of this message of God to 
man, urges it upon his fellow-sinners in 
the very spirit which first prompted that 
message from the upper sanctuary—it is 
when he truly represents, not alone the 
contents of Heaven’s overtures, but also 
that heavenly kindness by which they 
were suggested—it is when he entreats 
rather than when he denounces, and 
when that compassion, which is in the 
heart of the Godhead, actuates his own 


—it is when standing in the character of 


an ambassador from Him who sc loved 
the world, he accompanies the delivery 
of his message with the looks and the 
language of his own manifest tenderness 
—it is then that the preacher of salva- 
tion is upon his best vantage-ground of 
command over the hearts of a willing 
people ; and when he finds that charity, 
and prayer and moral earnestness have 
done what neither lordly intolerance nor 
even lordly argument could have done, 
ii is then that he rejoices in the beautiful 
experience, that it is something else than 
the wrath of man which is the instru- 
ment of working the righteousness of God. 

The apostle says, “ covet earnestly the 
best gifts,’ and then adds, “but yet I 
show you a more excellent way’”—even 
the way of charity. Weare also bidden 
_ to contend earnestly for the faith once 
delivered unto the saints.” But notwith- 
standing, there may be a still more excel- 
lent and effectual way, even to “speak 
the truth in love.” It is thus that the 
gospel, sometimes in one passage, blends 
firmness of principle with the gentleness 
of kind affection, towards those who are 
its adversaries. ‘ Watch ye, stand fast 
in the faith, quit you like men, be strong 
Let all your things be done with charity.” 
“ Do all things without murmurings and 
disputings, that ye may be blameless and 


harmless, the sons of God without re- 
buke in the midst of a wicked and per- 
* verse nation, among whom ye shine as 


BFFECT OF MAN’S WRATH IN RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES, 





” 


258 


lights in the world, holding forth the 
word of life.” “Now we exhort you 
brethren, warn them that are unruly, 
comfort the feeble-minded ; support the 
weak, be patient towards all men. See: 


that none may render evil for evil unto 
any man; but ever follow that which is 
good, both among yourselves and to all 
men.” 
one thing. 
ment is another. 
in the first. 
ness to be liked and admired in the se- 
cond. 
against the heretic. 
and assails the heresy. ‘The strength of 
irritation is wholly different from the 
strength of conviction ; and a deep sen- 
sation of the importance of truth is 


The vehemence of passion is 
The vehemence of senti- 
There is a hatefulness 
There is a certain noble- 


The former vents itself in malice 
The latter urges 


wholly different from the strength of 


conviction ; and a deep sensation of the 


importance of truth, is wholly different 


from a sensitive dislike towards him who 


resists or disowns it. The Bible makes 


the discrimination between these two ; 
and it tells us to shun the one, and to 
crush the other to the uttermost. 


Under 
its guidance, we shall know both how to 
maintain an unyielding front of resist- 


ance to the error, and yet to have com- 
passion and courtesy for him who is the 
victim of it. 
by the power of argument—but it Is a 
greater triumph to conciliate and convert 


by the power of charity. 


It is a triumph to conquer 


II. But this brings me to the second 
head of discourse, under which I shall 
now, very shortly, consider the effect of 
man’s wrath, when interposed between a 
right and a wrong denomination of 
Christianity. 

It can require no very deep insight into 
our nature to perceive, that when there 1s 
proud or angry intolerance on the side 
of truth, it must call forth the reaction of 
a sullen and determined obstinacy on the 
other side of error. Men will submit to 
be reasoned out of an opinion, and more 
especially when treated with respect and 
kindness. But they will not submit to 
be cavalierly driven out of it. There 18 
a revolt inthe human spirit against con- 
tempt and contumely, insomuch that the 
soundest cause is sure to suffer from the 
help of some auxiliaries. When pas- 
sion is enlisted on one side of a contr 


260 


versy, when provocation is awakened on 
the other side,—and the parties erecting 
themselves into stouter and loftier attitude 
than before, stand to each other in res- 
pective positions which are mutually im- 
pregnable. It is this infusion of temper 
by which the force even of mighty argu- 
meut 1s paralyzed. It is when disdain 
meets with defiance, when exasperating 
charges mect with indignant recrimina- 
tions, when the shouts of exulting vic- 
tory may sting the bosom of adversaries 
with the humiliations, but never draw 
from their lips the acknowledgments of 
defeat,—it is when the war of words 
is anunated with feelings such as these, 
that Truth, whose still small voice is all- 
powerful, falls from her omnipotence 
and her glory; and Falsehood, resolute 
in the midst of such stormy agitations, 
is only riveted thereby more firmly upon 
her basis. ‘To the perversity of human 
error, there is now superadded the still 
cnore hopeless perversity of human wil- 
fulness—and on looking at the whole re- 
sulting amount from these fulminations 
of heated partisanship, one cannot fail to 
acknowledge, that indeed the wrath of 
man worketh not the righteousness of 
God. 

Nevertheless, it is the part of man, both 
to adopt and to advocate the truth, lifting 
his zealous testimony in its favour. Yet 
there is surely a way of doing this in the 
spirit of charity; and while strenuous, 
while even uncompromising in the argu- 
ment, it is possible surely to observe all 
the amenities of gentleness and good-will 
in these battles of the faith. For exam- 
ple, it is not wrong to feel either the 
strength or the importance of our cause, 
when we plead the Godhead of the Sa- 
viour; when, in affirming this to be an 
article of our creed, we simply repeat 
a Statement of Scripture, as distinct and 
absolute as it is in the power of vocables 
to make it; even that “the Word was 
(zod ;” when, after that a sound erudition 
hath pronounced the integrity of this one 
passage, we should deem it a waste and 
a perversion of criticism, to suspend our 
belief, tiil we had adjusted all the merits 
of all the controversies on other and more 
ambiguous passages; when after being 
satisfied that the Bible is indeed the 
record of an authentic communication 
from Heaven to earth, we put faith in 


EFFECT OF MAN’S WRATH IN RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. 





[SERM. 


this its clearest utterance, than which if 
is not within the compass of human lan- 
guage to frame a more unequivocal, ora 
more definite; when contrasting the ig- 
norauce of a creature so beset and limited 
as man, with the amplitude of that infi- 
nite and everlasting light, from the con- 
fines of which the message of revelation 
hath broke upon our world, we count it 
our becoming attitude to listen to all its 
announcements even as with the docility 
of little children ; when, more especially, 
in profoundest darkness as we are, about 
the nature or the constitution ofthe Deity, 
who, throned in the mystery of His un- 
fathomable essence, pervades all space, 
and without beginning or without end, 
unites in His wondrous Being the ex- 
tremes of eternity, we hold that one infor- 
mation of Himself, and from His own 
authoritative voice, should rebuke and 
bid away all human imaginations ; when 
placed, as we are, in but a corner of that 
immensity which He hath peopled with 
innumerable worlds, with nought to in- 
struct us but the experience of our little 
day, and nought to guide our way to that 
region of invisibles which is all His own 
—we, surrendering each fond and fa- 
vourite preconception of ours, defer to the 
teaching of Him, who is Himself the 
fountain-head of existence, and whose eye 
reaches to the furthest outskirts of the 
universe that He has formed. And 
should He but tell of Him who has made 
flesh, that He was in the beginning with 
God, and that He was God, surely on a 
theme so vastly above us and beyond us, 
it is for us to regulate our belief by the 
very letter of this communication ; and 
on the basis of such an evidence as this, 
to honour the Son even as we honour the 
Father, is the soundest philosophy, as 
well as the soundest faith. | 

Yet with all these reasons for holding 
ourselves to be intellectually right upon 
this question, there is not one reason why 
the wrath of man should be permitted to 
mingle in the controversy. This, when- 
ever it is admitted, operates not as an in- 
gredient of strength, but as an ingredient 
of weakness. Let Truth be shrined in 
argument—for this is its appropriate 
glory. And it is a sore disparagement 
inflicted upon it by the hand of vindictive 
theologians, when, instead of this, it is 
shrined in anathema, or brandished asa * 


Xxxt.] 


weapon of dread and of destruction over 
the heads of all who are compelled to do 
it homage. The terrible denunciations 
of Athanasius have not helped—they 
have injured the cause. The Godhead 
of Christ is not thus set forth in the New 
Testament. It is nowhere proposed in 
the shape of a mere dictatorial article. or 
as a naked dogma, for the understanding 
alone; and at one place it is introduced 
as an episode for the enforcement of a 
moral virtue. In this famous passage, 
the practical lesson occupies the station 
of principal, as the main or capital figure 
of the piece ; and the doctrine on which 
so many would effervesce all their zeal, 
even to exhaustion, stands to it but in the 
relation of a subsidiary. The lesson is, 
“Let nothing be done through strife 
or vain-glory ; but in lowliness of mind 
let each esteem other better than them- 
selves. Look not every man on his own 
things, but every man also on the things 
of others.” And the doctrine, 
ticed by the Apostle, not to the end that 
he may rectify the opinion of his disci- 
ples, but primarily and obviously, to the 
end that he may rectify their conduct) 
the doctrine for the enforcement of the 
lesson is, “ Let this mind be in you, 
which was also in Christ Jesus: who, 
being in the form of God, thought it not 
robbery to be equal with God, but made 
himself of no reputation, and took upon 
him the form of a servant, and was made 
in the likeness of men ; and being found 


in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, | 


and became obedient unto death, even 
the death of the cross.” In these verses 
there is a collateral lesson for our faith ; 
but the chief, the direct lesson, is a lesson 
of charity, which is greater than faith. 
And would the heart of Trinitarian be 


but as obediently schooled as his head, by | 


this passage—would Orthodoxy, instead 
of the strife and the vain-glory which 
have given her so revolting an aspect, 
both of pride and sternness, but put on 
her bowels of mercy, and to her truth 
add tenderness—would the champions 
of a Saviour’s dignity but learn of His 
meekness and lowliness, and, while they 
assert Him to be God manifest in the 
flesh, meet the perversity of gain-sayers 
mm the very spirit of gentleness that He 


EFFECT OF MAN’S WRATH IN RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES, 


(here no- | 





1 


261 


wardly and upwardly to the station of 
the Church triumphant in the world. 
This is the way in which, by the mechan- 
ism of our moral nature, to obtain ascen- 
dancy over the hearts of men. Truth 
will be indebted for her best victories, not 
to the overthrow of Heresy, discomfited 
on the field of argument, but to the sur- 
render of Heresy, disarmed of that in 
which her strength and her stability lie, 
—of her passionate, because provoked 
wilfulness. Charity will do what reason 
cannotdo. It will take that which letteth 
out of the way—even that wrath of man, 
which worketh neither the truth nor the 
righteousness of God. 

But our time does not permit of any 
further illustration—else we might have 
shown at greater length, how, by the 
oversight of this great principle, the cause 
both of truth and of righteousness has 
been impeded in the world. Theologians 
have forgotten it in their controversies. 
Statesmen have forgotten it in their laws. 
Never was there a greater blunder in 
legislation, than that by which the forces 
of the statute-book have been enlisted on 
the side of truth; and error, as was quite 
natural, instead of being subdued, has 
been thereby settled down into tenfold 
obstinacy. The glories of martyrdom 
have been transferred from the right to 
the wrong side of the question; and 
superstition, which, in a land of perfect 
light and perfect liberty, would hide her 
head as ashamed, gathers a title to respect, 
and stands forth in a character of moral 
heroism, because of the injustice which 
has been brought to bear upon her. She 
ought, in all wisdom, to have been left to 
her own natural decay—or, at least, rea- 
son and kindness are the only engines 
which should have been made to play 
upon her strong-holds. But with such 
an auxiliary as the mere authority of 
terror upon the one side, and such a re- 
sistance as that of generous and high- 
minded indignation upon the other— 
there have arisen the elements of an 
interminable warfare. And not till truth, 
relieved of so unseemly an associate, be 
confined to the use of her proper weap- 
ons, will she be reinstated on her proper 
vantage-cround. It is not in the fermen- 
tation of human passions and human 


> 


did,— This were the way by which the | politics, that the lessons of heaven can be 
Church militant might be borne on-| with efficacy taught—and ere these les: 


252 


sons shall go abroad in triumph over the 
length and breadth of the land, we must 
recall the impolicy by which we have 
turned a whole people into a nation of out- 
easts. ‘To exclude is surely not the way 
to assimilate. It is by pervading, instead 
of separating into an unbroken mass, and 
then placing it off at a distance from us 
‘—it is by extensively mingling with the 
men of another denomination, in all the 
walks of civil and political business—it 
is then, that the occasions of converse 
and of courtesy will be indefinitely mul- 
tiplied—and then will it be found, that it 
is by an influence altogether opposite to 
the wrath of man, that we are enabled to 
work the righteousness of God. 

But let us not make entrance on a 
field, to the verge of which we have now 
been conducted “by the light of a princi- 
ple that is abundantly capable of shed- 
ding most beautiful, as well as most be- 
neficent illustration over the whole of it. 
Let us rather conclude with the applica- 
tion of our text, not to the affairs of an 
empire, or the affairs of a church, but 
rather to the affairs of a single congrega- 
tion. Let us recur, though but for one 
moment, ere we shall have brought our 
address to its close, to that spirit of kind- 
ness and good-will, which prompted the 
original formation of the gospel message 
in the upper sanctuary, as being indeed 
the very spirit by which the expounder 
of that message ought to be actuated. 
He may have at times to engage in con- 
flict with the infidels or the heretics 
around him. Nevertheless, let him be 
assured, that it is by other armour than 
that which is wielded on the field of con- 
troversy—by an influence more power- 
ful still, than even that of overbearing 
argument, by the moral and affectionate 
earnestness of a heart that breathes the 
very charity and tenderness of heaven 
upon his audience,—it is thus that minis- 
terial work is done most prosperousl y— 
the work of winning souls, of turning 
sons and daughters unto righteousness. 

It is not so easy as may be thought, to 
dislodge the fears, or to win the confi- 
dence of nature in him who is nature’s 
God. There is a certain overhanging 
sense of guilt, which forms the main in- 
gredient of this alienation. It is this 
which darkens, to the eye of our world, 
the face of Heaven’s Lawgiver; 


EFFECT OF MAN'S WRATH IN 


ito the human imagination ; 





a it A SS ssn slBanSRSTESS Sassen 


and | the atursbuateas 


RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES, "SERM. 
brings such a burden of dread and of 
distrust on the spirit of man, that he feels 
nothing to invite, but to repel and over- 
awe, in the thought of Heaven's high 
sacredness. It is thus that the aspect of 
the Divinity is mantled and overshaded 
and instead 
of reading there the sionals of welcome 
and good-will, we figure to ourselves a 
God dwelling in some awful and august 
sanctuary, or seated on a throne whence 
the fire of jealousy goeth fo:th to burn 
up and to destroy. It is sin which has 
laid this cold, this heavy obstruction, on 
the hearts of our outcast species. ‘There 
is a strong, though secret, apprehension 
of displeasure i in the countenance of Him 
who is above, which haunts us continu- 
ally, and gives us the hourly, the habit- 
ual, feeling of outcasts. Man recoils to 
a distance from God, and regards God 
as placed at an inaccessible distance from 
him. There is between them a gulph 
of separation, across which man looks 
with disquietude and dismay, as he would 
to some spectral or portentous image 
shrouded in mystery, and all the more 
tremendous that he is invisible and un- 
known. The greatest moral revolution 
which the spirit of man undergoes, is 
when these clouds which overhang the 
hemisphere of his spiritual vision are all 
cleared away, and the Godhead shines 
upon him with a new and an opposite 
manifestation—when simply, because 
now seeing the Deity under an aspect of 
graciousness, he, instead of trembling be- 
fore Him as an enemy, can securely trust 
in Him as a friend, and can rejoice in 
that Being of whom he has been made 
to know and to believe that He rejoices 
over him, to bless him and to do him good. 
Now, it is by faith in the Gospel of 
Jesus Christ, and by it alone, that this 
great revolution is achieved. Itis through 
the open door of His mediatorship, that 
the sinner draws nigh, and beholds God 
as a reconciled Father. It is because of 
that blood of atonement, wherewith the 
mercy-seat on high is sprinkled, that he 
is made to hear the voice of weleome and 
of good-will which issues therefrom. He 
now beholds no severity in the aspect of 
the Lawgiver; and yet, through the work 
of Him by whom ‘the law was magni 
fied, he there beholds the harmony of all 
Such is the exquisite skil 


XXXIL} 
fulness of the economy under which we 
‘sit, that the truth, and the justice, and the 
holiness, which out of Christ were leagued 
against us for destruction—now that these 
have emerged, in vindicated lustre, from 
- that hour of darkness, when the Saviour 
howed down his head unto the sacrifice, 
they are the guarantees of pardon and 
acceptance to all who lay hold of this 
great salvation. It was in love to man 
that this wondrous dispensation was 
framed. It was kindness, honest, heart- 
felt, compassionate kindness, that formed 
the moving principle of the embassy from 
heaven to our world. We protest, by 
the meekness and the gentleness of 
Christ, by the tears of Him who wept at 
Lazarus’ tomb, and over the approaching 


ruin of Jerusalem, by every word of 
blessing that He uttered, and by every 


footstep of this wondrous visitor over the 
surface of a land on which he went about 
doing good continually,—we protest in 
the name of all these unequivocal demon- 
strations, that they do Him an injustice 
who propound this message in any other 
way than as a message of friendship to 
our species. He came not to condemn, 
but to save; not to destroy, but to keep 
alive. And he is the fittest bearer, he 
the best interpreter, of these overtures 
from above, who urges them upon men, 
not with wrath, and clamour, and con- 
troversial bitterness, but in the very spirit 
of that wisdom from above, which is 
gentle, and easy to be entreated, and full 
of mercy. 

In this way the moral power of the 
truth is superadded to its argumentative 
power. The kind affection of the speaker 
becomes an element of weight and influ- 
ence in the demonstration which falls 
from him. He does more than barely 
utter the realities of the gospel—he pic- 
tures them forth in the persuasiveness of 
his own accents, in the looks as well as 
the language of his own manifested ten- 
derness. He is the right person for 
standing between a people and heaven— 
seeing’that Heaven’s love to men is ex- 
pressed visibly in his own countenance, 
audibly in the earnestness of his own 
voice. With a heart glowing in charity 
to his hearers, he is the fit representative, 
the best expounder, of that embassy,. 
which has come from the dwelling-place 
of the Eternal on an errand of charity to 


EFFECT OF MAN’S WRATH IN RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. 


263 


{our world. And fraught as he is with 


the tidings of mercy, it is not more when 
he urges the truth, than when he affect- 
ingly sets forth the tenderness of these 
tidings, that he charms the acquiescence 
of men, and his message is felt to be 
“ worthy of all acceptation.” 

Before I leave you, I should like, even 
though at the end of our discourse, and 
by an informal resumption of its first 
topic, to possess the heart of each who 
now hears me with the distinct assurance 
of God’s proffered good-will to him, of 
His free and full pardon stretched out 
for the acceptance of him. If heretofore 
you have been in the habit of contempla- 
ting the gospel as at a sort of speculative 
distance, and in its generality, I want 
you now to feel the force of its pointed, 
its personal application, and to understand 
it as a message addressed specifically to 
you. ‘The message has been so framed, 
and couched in phraseology of such pe- 
culiar import, that it knocks for entrance 
at every heart, and is laid down for ac- 
ceptance at every door. It is true, that 
you are not named and surnamed in the 
Bible; but the term “ whosoever,’ asso- 
ciated, as it frequently is, with the offer 
of its blessings, points that offer to each 
and to all of you. “ Whosoever will, let 
him drink of the waters of life freely.” 
It is very true that this written communi- 
cation has not been handed to you, like 
the letter of a distant acquaintance, with 
the address of your designation and 
dwelling-place inscribed upon it. But 
the term “all,” as good as specializes the 
address to each, and each has a full war- 
rant to proceed upon the call, “ Look 
unto me, all ye ends of the earth, and be 
saved ;” or, “ Come unto me, all ye who 
labour and are heavy laden, and 1 will 
give you rest.” It is furthermore true, 
that Christ has not appeared in person at 
any of your assemblies, and, singling out 
this one individual, and that other, has 
bid him step forward with an application 
for pardon, on the assurance that he 
would receive it ;—but the term “every”! 
singles out each ; and He has left behind 
Him the precious, the unexcepted declar- 
ation, that “every one who asketh re- 
ceiveth,” that “every one who seeketh 
findeth.” And lastly, it is true that He 
disperses no special messengers of His 
grace to special individuals; but the 


264 


term “any,” though occupying but its 
own little room in a single text, has a 
force equally dispersive with as many 
messengers sent to the world as there are 
men upon its surface. “If any man 
thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” 
‘These are the words which, unlike the 
wheels of Ezekiel’s vision, turn every 
way, carrying the message of salvation 
diffusively abroad among all, and point- 


ing it distinctively to each of the human | 


family. Their scope is wide as the spe- 
cies, and their application is to every in- 
dividual thereof. And what I want each 
individual present to understand, is, that 
God in the gospel beseeches him to 
be reconciled—God is saying unto him, 
“Turn thou, turn thou, why wilt thou 
die 7” 

There are certain generic words at- 
tached at times to the overtures of the 
gospel, which have the same twofold 
power of spreading abroad these over- 
tures generally among all, yet of point- 
ing them singly at each of the human 
family. The “ world,” for example, is a 
word of this import ; and Jesus Christ is 
declared to be a propitiation for the sins 
of the whole world. After this, man, 
though an inhabitant of the world, and, 
as such, fairly within the scope of this 
communication, may continue to forbid 
himself, but most assuredly God has not 
forbidden him. The term “ sinner’ is 
another example, as being comprehensive 
of a genus, whereof each individual may 
appropriate the benefits that are said in 
Scripture to be intended for the whole. 
“This is a faithful saying, and worthy 
of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came 
mto the world to save sinners.’ Still it 
ig posssible, as before, that many a sinner 
“may not hold this saying to be worthy, 


EFFECT OF MAN’S WRATH IN RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. 


[seERM, 


or, at least, may not make it tne subject 
of his acceptation. His demand perhaps 
is, that, ere he can have a warrantable 
confidence in this saying for himself, he 
must be specially, and by name, included 
in it; whereas the truth is, that to war- 
rant his distrust, his want of confidence 
after such a saying, he should be spe- 
cially, and by name, excluded from it. 
After an utterance like this, instead of 
needing, as a sufficient reason of depend- 
ence, to be made the subject of a particu- 
lar invitation, he would really need, as a 
sufficient reason of despondency, to be 
made the subject of a particular excep- 
tion. Is not the characteristic term, 
“ sinner,” sufficiently descriptive of him ? 
as much so, indeed, as if he had been 
named and surnamed in Scripture. Does 
it not mark him as an object for all those 
announcements which bear on sinners, 
as such, or sinners generally? The 
truth is, if we but understood the terms 
of this great act of amnesty, and made 
the legitimate application of them, we 
should perceive that, to whomsoever the 
word of salvation has come, to him the 
offer of salvation has been made—that he 
is really as welcome to all the blessings 
of the New Testament, as if he had been 
the only creature in the universe who 
stood in need of them ; as if he had been 
the only sinner of all the myriads of be- 
ings whom God hath formed ; and as if 
to reclaim him, and to prevent the moral 
harmony of creation from being stained 
or interrupted by even so much as one 
solitary exception, for him alone the 
costly apparatus of redemption had been 
reared, and Christ had died, that God 
might be to him individually both a just 
God and a Saviou:, 


XXXIT1.] 


* 


ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. ANDREW THOMPSON. 


’ . 


265 


SERMON XX XIII. 


- 


On the Death of the Rev. Dr. Andrew Thompson. 


“He being dead yet speaketh."—Hesrews xi. 4. 


_ Tuerrisone sense in whichthistext ad- 
mits the utmost generality of application. 
~Every man who dies, speaks a lesson to 
survivors—even that lesson which is the 
oftenest told, but which is also the oftenest 
forgotten. There is on this subject a 
cleaving and a constitutional earthliness, 
which stands its ground against every de- 
monstration—giving way, for a moment 
perhaps, at each of the successive instan- 
ces, but recovering itself on the instant 
when the scenes, and the companionships 
and the business of the world again close 
around us. 
sense, and the present, the sensible world 
is the only one that we practically ac- 
knowledge. Carnality is the scriptural 
term for this disease of fallen humanity— 
a disease of marvellous inveteracy and 
force ; and not to be dislodged, we fear, by 
any assault whatever, whether ordinary 
or extraordinary, on the mere sensibilities 
of nature. We are never more assured, 
than to translate a man from the walk of 
sight to the walk of faith, is a work of 
supernatural energy, than when we wit- 
ness the impotency of all natural applian- 
ces, and how the spell which binds him 
to the world is not to be broken by the 
loudest and most emphatic warnings of 
the world’s vanity. A rooted preference 
of the interests of time to the interests of 
eternity—this is what arithmetic may dis- 
prove, but itis what arithmetic cannot dis- 
sipate. This is what the pathos and pow- 
er of some affecting visitation may sus- 
pend, but which no visitation can ultimately 
quell; and after a brief season of sighs, 
and sensibilities, and tears, the man 
emerges again to as whole-hearted a sec- 
ularity as before. Thus it is, that the 
thousand funerals which from childhood 
to age he may have attended, have only 
cradled him into a profounder spiritual le- 
thargy ; and that the frequent wrecks of 
‘mortality, through which he has plough- 
ed his way on the ocean of life, have only 
34 


We are the creatures of 


stamped a sort of weather-beaten hardi- 
hood upon his soul. The man is more 
and more seasoned, as it were, by every 
repetition of death, against its terrors, till, 
at last, himself dies in deep and hopeless 
apathy. 

Such, we fear, is mainly the sad history 
of the world throughout its successive 
generations. Such is the infatuation of 
men walking in a vain show; and only 
more confirmed, by every instance of 
death, in false and fatal security. There 
is no question it ought to be otherwise. 
Every partaker of our nature who dies, 
should impressively remind us of our 
own mortality. Every exemplification 
of the unsparing and universal law, 
should be borne homeward in pointed and 
personal application to ourselves. ‘There 
is not'a human creature, however insig- 
nificant, who, simply by the act of expir- 
ing, should not speak to us in accents of 
deepest seriousness ; and tell, with an elo- 
quence not to be resisted, of our own ap- 
proaching end, our own sudden arrest, or 
dying agonies. All] the tokens and me- 
mentoes of death should have this effect 
upon us—as every funeral bell, every 
open grave, every procession that day af- 
ter day moves along our streets, and 
scarcely arrests the eye of the heedless 
passenger. Nor is it necessary that he 
should be a man of rank, or talents, or 
commanding influence, or wide and gen- 
eral popularity, who is thus borne along. 
Enough, if be be flesh of our flesh, and 
bone of our bone. The humblest of me- 
nials is fitted to be our monitor on such 
an occasion. Even he when dead speak- 
eth; and if he do not effectually convince, 
he will at least most emphatically con- 
demn. 

I need not say, to this assembly of 
mourners, in what more striking and im- 
pressive form the lesson has been given 
tous. It is just as if death had wanted 
to make the highest demonstration of his 


2656 


sovereignty, and for this purpose had se- 
lected as his mark, him who stood the 
foremost, and the most conspicuous in the 
view of his countrymen. I speak not at 
present of any of the relations in which 
he stood to the living society immediately 
around him—to the thousands in church 
whom his well-known voice reached up- 
on the Sabbath—-to the tens of thousands 
in the city, whom, through the week, in 
the varied rounds and meetings of Chris- 
tian philanthropy, he either guided by his 
couusel, or stimulated by his eloquence. 
You know, over and above, how far the 
wide, and the wakeful, and the untired 
benevolence of his nature carried him; 
and that, in the labours, and the locomo- 
tions connected with these, he may be said 
to have become the personal acquaintance 
of the people of Scotland. Insomuch, 


that there is not a village in the land, 


where the tidings of his death have not 
conveyed the information that a master in 
Israel has fallen; and I may also add, 
that such was the charm of his compan- 
ionship, such the cordiality lighted up by 
his presence in every household, that, 
connected with this death, there is, at this 
moment, an oppressive sadness in the 
hearts of many thousands even of our 
most distant Scottish families. And so,a 
national lesson has been given forth by 
this event, even as a national loss has 
been incurred by it. It is a public death 
in the view of many spectators. And 
when one thinks of the vital energy by 
which every deed and every utterance 
were per vaded-—of that prodigious strength 
which but gamboled with the difficulties 
that would have so depressed and over- 
borne other men—of that prowess in con- 
flict, and that promptitude in counsel with 
his fellows—of that elastic buoyancy 
which ever rose with the occasion, and 
bore him onward and upward to the suc- 
cessful termination of his cause—of the 
weight and multiplicity of his engage- 
ments ; and yet, as if nothing could over- 
work that colossal mind, and that robust 
framework, the perfect lightness and fa- 
cility wherewithall was executed,—when 
one thinks, in the midst of these powers 
and these performances, how intensely he 
laboured, I had almost said, how intense- 
ly he lived, in the midst of us, we cannot 
but acknowledge, that death, in seizing 
upon him, hath made full proof of a mas- 


ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. DR. ANDREW THOMSON. 


[SERM 


tery that sets all the might and all the 
promise of humanity at defiance. 

But while in no possible way could 
general society have, through means of 
but one individual example, been more 
impressively told of the power of death— 
to you, in particular, it is a letter of deep- 
est pathos. The world at large can form 
no estimate of the tenderness which be- 
longs to the spiritual relationship, though 
J trust that on this topic, mysterious to 
them, yet familiar, I hope and believe, to 
many of you, I now speak to a goodly 
number who can own him as their spi- 
ritual father. But even they who are 
strangers to the power and reality of’ 
these things may comprehend the grow- 
ing attachment of hearers to the minister, 
who, Sabbath after Sabbath, imparts to 
them of his own mental wealth, and ex- 
cites in them somewhat of his own moral 
and religious earnestness. Even, apart 
from all personal acquaintance or inter- 
course, a sympathy with the personal 
ministrations of the clergymen under 
whom you sit, often draws a very close 
and binding affinity along with it. The 
man, with the very tones of whose voice 
you associate many of your most pleasing 
and hallowed recollections—the man to 
whom you feel yourselves indebted for 
the most delightful Sabbaths of other 
days—he who guided your devotions, 
and cleared away your difficulties, and 
pointed your path to heaven, and first 
opened the method of salvation, and by 
his expostulations and his arguments, 
was the instrument of determining you 
to forsake all, and follow after Christ,— 
every Christian can tell that to that man 
there attaches an interest of no ordinary 
tenderness and force. Even a general 
and unconverted hearer may share in 
this affection—although only his under- 
standing was regaled by the pulpit de- 
monstration; or his imagination by its 
splendour and eloquence; or his con- 
science, so far impressed, as at least to 
recognise the general truth of the prin- 
ciples, and the perfect moral honesty and 
earnestness of him who urges and ex- 
pounds them. The man who is frank 
and fearless, and able, and, above all, 
whose heart was fully charged with 
what may be called, the brotherhood of 
our nature ; whose every look and utter- 
ance bespoke the strength of his own 


g 


~Xxxutt.] 


convictions, and the intensity of his zeal 
to plant them in the bosoms of other men, 
—that sian would, in the course of months, 
or of years, become the geteral friend of 
the multitude whom he addresses ; apart 
froin all separate converse and fellowship 
with the mdividuals who compose it. 
Though only the pulpit acquaintance, 
and not at all the personal of the many 
hundreds who listen to him, yet in this 
capacity alone might obtain a mighty 
hold of their affections notwithstanding. 
At once the soul and mouth of the con- 
gregation, he is on high tantage-ground 
for such an ascendancy. He speaks as 
it were, from a pre-eminence, and, havy- 
ing all the moral forces of the gospel at 
command, it is incalculable with what 
sure and general effect; a minister, even 
of ordinary talents, if but of acknowledg- 
ed honesty and worth, can subdue the 
people under him. But his was no ordi- 
nary championship; and although the 
weapons of our spiritual warfare are the 
same in every hand, we all know that 
there was none who wielded them more 
vigorously than he did, or who, with 
such an arm of might, and voice of re- 
sistless energy, carried, as if by storm, 
the convictions of his people. ‘That such 
an arm should now be motionless, that 
such a yoice should be for ever hushed 
‘n deep and unbroken silence, is to all a 
thought of profoundest melancholy. But 
he was the special property of his hear- 
ers, and to them it comes far more ur- 
gently and impressively home, than does 
any general object of touching or tragic 
contemplation. ‘T'o them it is a personal 
bereavement,—and whether or not on 
the terms with him of individual con- 
verse, they droop and are in heaviness, 
because of their now widowed Sabbaths, 
their bereft and desolated sanctuary. 

But the lesson is prodigiously en- 


~hanced, when we pass from his pulpit to 


his household ministrations. I perhaps 
do him wrong, in supposing that any 
large proportion of his hearers did not 
know him personally—for such was his 
matchless superiority to fatigue, such the 
unconquerable strength and activity of 
his nature, that he may almost be said 
to have accomplished a sort of personal 
ubiquity among his people. But ere you 
can appreciate the whole effect of this, 
let me advert to a principle of very ex- 


ON THE DEATH OF THE REV, DR. ANDREW -THOMSON. 


267 


tensive operation in nature. Painters 
know it well. They are aware, bow 
much. it adds to the force and beauty of 
any representation of theirs, when made 
strikingly and properly to contrast with 
the back-ground on which it is projected. 
And the same is as true of direct nature, 
set forth in one of her own immediate 
scenes, as of reflex nature, set forth by 
the imagination and pencil of an artist. 
This is often exemplified in these Alpine 
wilds, where beauty may, at times, be 
seen embosomed in the lap of grandeur, 
—as when, at the base of a lofty. preci- 
pice, some spot of verdure, or peaceful 
cottage-home, seems to smile in more in- 
tense loveliness, because of the towering 
strength and magnificence which are be- 
hind it. Apply this to the character, and 
think how precisely analogous the effect 
is—when, from the ground-work of a 
character, that, mainly, in its texture and 
general aspect, is masculine, there do 
effloresce the forth-puttings of a softer 
nature, and those gentler charities of the 
heart, which come out irradiated in ten- 
fold beauty; when they arise from a sub- 
stratum of moral strength and grandeur 
underneath. It is thus, when the man 
of strength shows himself the man of 
tenderness ; and he who, sturdy and im- 
pregnable m every righteous cause, 
makes his graceful descent to the ordi- 
nary companionships of life, is found to . 
mingle, with kindred warmth, in all the 
cares and the sympathies of his fellow- 
men. Such, I am sure, is the touching 
recollection of very many who now hear 
me, and who can fell; in their own ex- 
perience, that the vigour of his pulpit, 
was only equalled by the fidelity and the 
tenderness of his household ministrations. 
They understand the whole force and 
significancy of the contrast I have now 
been speaking of—when the pastor of 
the church becomes the pastor of the 
family ; and he who, in the crowded as- 
sembly, held imperial sway over every 
understanding, entered some parent's 
lowly dwelling, and prayed and wept 
along with them over their infant’s dy- 
ing bed. It is on occasions like these 
when the minister carries to its highest 
pitch the moral ascendancy which be- 
longs to his station. It is this which 
furnishes him with a key to every heart, 
—and when the triumphs of charity are 


268 


superadded to the triumphs of argument, 
then it is that he sits enthroned over the 
affections of a willing people. 

But I dare not venture any further on 
this track of observation. While yet 
standing aghast at a death which has 
come upon us all with the rapidity of a 
whirlwind, it might be easy, by means of 
a few touching and graphic recollections, 
to raise a tempest of emotion in the midst 
of you. It might be easy to awaken, in 
vivid delineation to the view of your 
mind, him who but a few days ago trod 
upon the streets of our city with the foot- 
steps of firm manhood ; and took part, 
with all his accustomed earnestness and 
vigour, in the busy concerns of living 
men. We could image forth the intense 
vitality which beamed in every look, and 
kept up, to the last moment, the incessant 
play of a mind, that was the fertile and 
ever-eddying fountain of just and solid 
thoughts. We could ask you to think of 
that master-spirit, with what presiding 
efficacy, yet with what perfect lightness 
and ease, he moved among his fellow- 
men; and, whether in the hall of debate, 
or in the circles of private conviviality, 
subordinated all to his purposes and 
views. We could fasten your regards 
on that dread encounter, when Death met 
this most powerful and resolute of men 
upon his way, and, laying instant arrest 
upon his movements, held him forth, in 
view of the citizens, as the proudest, while 
the most appalling of his triumphs. We 
could bid you weep at the thought of his 
agonized family—or rather, hurrying 
away from this big and unsupportable 
distress, we would tell of the public grief 
and the public consternation, and how the 
tidings of some great disaster flew from 
household to household, till, under the 
feeling of one common and overwhelm- 
ing bereavement, the whole city became 
a city of mourners. We could recall to 
you that day when the earth was com- 
mitted to the earth from which it came ; 
and the deep seriousness that sat on every 
countenance bespoke, not the pageantry, 
out the whole power and reality of woe. 
We could point to his closing sepulchre, 
and read to youthere the oft-repeated lesson 
of man’s fading and evanescent glories. 
But we gladly, my brethren, we gladly 
make our escape from all these images, 
and all these sentiments, of oppressive 


ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. DR. ANDREW THOMSOM. 


[SERM. 


melancholy. We would fain take refuge 
in other views, and betake ourselves to 
‘some other direction. What I should 
like, if I could accomplish it, were to 
take a calm and deliberate survey of a 
character, the exposition of which would, 
in fact, be the exposition of certain great 
principles, that I might hold up to your 
reverence and your practical imitation. 
It is thus, in fact, that he, though dead, 
yet speaks unto you. In attempting the 
office of an interpreter between the dead 
and the living, I feel the whole difficulty 
of the task which has been put into my 
hands; and I have to crave the indul- 
gence of my fellow-mourners for one, 
who, after a preparation of infirmity and 
sorrow, now addresses them in fear, and 
in weakness, and with much trembling. 

My observations will resolve them- 
selves into two heads—the character of 
the theologian, and the character of the 
man: and in the prosecution of which, | 
trust that both the influences of sound ~ 
doctrine and of sound example may be 
brought to bear upon you. 

First, then, in briefest possible defini- 
tion, his was the olden theology of Scot- 
land. A thoroughly devoted son of our 
Church, he was, through life, the firm, 
the unflinching advocate of its articles, 
and its formularies, and its rights, and 
the whole polity of its constitution and 
discipline. His creed he derived, by in- 
heritance, from the fathers of the Scottish 
Reformation—not, however, as based on 
human authority, but as based and up- 
holden on the authority of Scripture 
alone. Its two great articles are—Justi- 
fication, only by the righteousness of 
Christ—Sanctification, only by that Spirit 
which Christ is commissioned to bestow, 
—the one derived to the believer by faith; 
the other derived by faith too, because 
obtained and realised in the exercise of 
believing prayer. This simple and 
sublime theology, connecting the influ- 
ences of Heaven with the moralities of 
earth, did the founders of our Church 
incorporate, by their catechisms, with the 
education of the people; and, through 
the medium of a clergy, who maintained 
their orthodoxy and their zeal for several 
generations, was it faithfully and effi- 
ciently preached in all the parishes of 
the land. ‘The whole system originated 
in deepest piety ; and has resulted in the 


XXXu1.] 


formation of the most moral and intelli- 
gent peasantry in Europe. Yet, in spite 
of this palpable evidence in its favour, it 
fell into discredit. Along with the ele- 
gant literature of our sister country, did 
the meagre Arminianism of her church 
make invasion among our clergy; and 
we certainly receded for a time from the 
good old way of our forefathers. This 
was the middle age of the Church of 
Scotland, an age of cold and feeble 
rationality, when Evangelism was de- 
rided as fanatical, and its very phraseo- 
logy was deemed an ignoble and vulgar 
thing, in the upper classes of society. A 
morality without godliness—a certain 
prettiness of sentiment, served up in 
tasteful and well-turned periods of com- 
position—the ethics of Philosophy, or of 
the academic chair, rather than the ethics 
of the Gospel—the speculations of Natu- 


ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. DR. ANDREW THOMSON. 





ral Theology, and perhaps an ingenious | 


-and scholar-like exposition of the creden- 


» 


269 


and the pleading earnestness wherewith 
he hath so often dealt forth upon you, 
the impressive simplicities of the gospel 
—as, that Christ is the only Saviour; 
and the way of his prescribed holiness 
the only road to a blissful immortality. 
Your personal Christianity, my brethren, 
would be his best and noblest memorial 
—the most. satisfactory evidence, that 
through the organs of recollection and 
conscience, he was still speaking to you. 
Often hath he plied you with the warn- 
ings of Scripture ; and now, God himseli 
hath interposed, and superadded to these 
the solemn warning of Providence. He 
hath recalled His ambassador, and you 
will soon follow him to the reckoning,— 
him to give account of his ministry ; and 
you, on this principle of gospel equity, 
that to whom much is given, of him 
much will be required,—you to give ac- 
count of the fruit of his ministrations. 

I can afford to say no more on the 


tials, rather than a faithful exposition of | character of his theology,—but, additicn- 
the contents of the New Testament,— jal to this, and distinct from this, I would 
These for a time dispossessed the topics ; speak of what I term a characteristic of 


of other days, and occupied that room in 
our pulpits, which had formerly been 
given to the demonstrations of sin, and 
of the Saviour. You know there has 
been a reflux. The tide of sentiment 
has been turned ; and there is none who 
has given it greater momentum, or borne 
it more triumphantly along, than did the 
lamented Pastor of this congregation. 
His talents and his advocacy have thrown 
a lustre around the cause. The preju- 
dices of thousands have given way before 
the might and the mastery of his resist- 
less demonstrations. The evangelical 
system has of consequence risen, has 
risen prodigiously of late years, in the 
estimation of general society—connected 
to a great degree, we doubt not, under 
the blessing of God, with his powerful 
appeals to Scripture, and his no less 
powerful appeals to the consciences of 
men. 

But, in the doing of this great service 
to the Christianity of the nation, he has 
laid you, his individual hearers, under a 
heavy load of responsibility for your- 
selves. You will never forget, I trust, 
either the terror of his loud and emphatic 
denunciations ; or, what is still more per- 
suasive, the urgency of his beseeching 
voice. You will remember the powerful 


° 


his theology. I beg you will attend fox 
a moment to the difference of these two. 
The character is general, and that which 
he had in common with the members of 
a class,—the characteristic is special, or 
that by which his own individual theolo- 
gy was signalized, and by which I think 
it was ennobled. Could [ make myself 
intelligible on this matter, it might fur 
nish a cipher for the explanation of what 
many have called his peculiarities ; but, 
instead of which you would at once see 
the great and the high principle which 
gave birth to them all. 

The indispensable brevity of this ex- 
planation, both adds to the difficulty of 
my task, and forms a call on your more 
strenuous and sustained attention to me. 

‘There is a distinction made by moral- 
ists, between the determinate and the in- 
determinate virtues. I will not attempt 
to define, but I will illustrate this distinc- 
tion by an example. 

Justice is a determinate virtue, and 
why ?—because the precise line which 
separates it from its opposite, admits of 
being drawn with rigid and arithmetical 
precision; and he who transgresses this 
line by the minutest fraction, is clearly 
and distinctly chargeable with injustice. 
It is thus, that, in respect of this particu- 


270 


tar virtue, there may turn, on the differ- 

ence of a single farthing, the utmost 
difference, or, 1 shouid rather say, the 
most distinct and diametric opposition be- 
tween two characters. He who defrauds 
or steals, though but to the amount of a 
* farthing, not only differs in degree, but 
differs in kind, or belongs to a distinct 
and opposite genus of character, from 
him whom no temptation could ever lead 
to swerve from the unbending and rec- 
tilineal course of virtue,—who would re- 
coil with the utmost moral determination 
and delicacy from the slightest deviation ; 
and would feel, as if principle had struck 
its surrender, and was now lying pros- 
trate and degraded, should he enter by a 
single inch, or plant one footstep on the 
forbidden territory. 

Generosity, again, is an indeterminate 
virtue, and why ?—because there is no 
such definite line of separation between 
this virtue and its counterpart vice, as 
that you could pass by instant transition 
from it to its opposite. It does not pro- 
ceed by arithmetical differences of a far- 
thing more or less. You could not, as 
in the place of distinction between justice 
and injustice, put your finger at the 
point, where, in respect of this virtue of 
generosity, two men, by ever so little on 
the opposite sides of it, stood contrasted 
in diametric opposition to each other. 
The man who differs from his neighbour 
in withholding the farthing that is due, 
differs as much from him, as a vice does 
from its opposite virtue. The man who 
differs from his neighbour in withholding 
the farthing that would have brought his 
donation to an equality with the other’s, 
only differs, not in kind but in degree and 


that very imperceptibly, being only a lit-. 


tle less liberal, and a little less generous 
than his fellow. In the determinate vir- 
tue, one, by a single farthing, ora single 
footstep, might pass from a state of pure 
and exalted morality to a state of crime. 
In the indeterminate, there is what painters 
would call a shading off—a melting of 
hues into each other—a slow and insen- 
sible graduation. 

It is not then with a determinate, as 
with an indeterminate virtue. You can- 
not tamper with it, even to the extent of 
the humblest fraction, without making an 
entire sacrifice. It has its palpable and 
precise landmark ; and you cannot per- 


ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. DR. ANDREW THOMSON. 


[SERM 


mit the encroachment of a single hair- 
breadth, without a virtual giving up of 
the whole territory. ‘This principle is 
fully recognised in the ethics of Scrip- 
ture: “He who is unfaithful in the least, 
is unfaithful also in much.” Who would 
ever think of doing away the turpitude or 
the disgracefulness of theft, by alleging 
the paltriness and insignificance of the 
thing stolen? It is thus that the little 
pilferments of household service; the 
countless peccadilloes which go on in the 
departments of business, and confidential 
agency; the innumerable freedoms which 
are currently practised, and that without 
remorse, along the line which separates 
the just from the unjust,—do bespeak a 
fearful relaxation of principle in society. 
And it is thus also, on the other hand, 
that the purest and most honourable vir- 
tue, even to the extent of a moral chival- 
ry, may be exemplified in littles. And, 
on the reverse position, that “ he who is 
faithful in the least, is faithful also in 
much,” may the Christian domestic, in 
the perfect sacredness and safety of all 
that is committed to her, even to the 
minutest articles of her custody and care, 
show forth the heroism of sublimest prin- 
ciple. 

A determinate virtue can no more bear 
to be violated, even though only by one 
footstep of encroachment, than an inde- 
pendent country can ‘bear an entrance 
upon its border, though only by half 
a mile, on the part of an invading army. 
It is enough, in either instance, if the line 
be only crossed, to call forth in the one 
case the remonstrances of offended prin- 
ciple, and in the other, the resistance and 
the fire of indignant patriotism. In 
neither example, needs the material harm 
to have been of any sensible amount, that 
in both there might be the utmost feeling 
of a moral violence. 

Before applying this principle to the 
object of appreciating the character of 
our dear and departed friend, let me re- 
mark, that Scripture, all over, is full of 
the principle, and full of the most striking 
and pertinent illustrations of it. “ Thou 
mayest not eat of the fruit of the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil. In the day 
thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” 
This was a determinate prohibition—and 
by the eating, though it had only been 
of one apple, complete and conclusive 


a 


outrage was done to it. 


XXxItr.] 


The tree, unin- 
jured by this act of disobedience, might, 
in the profusion of its golden clusters, 
have stood forth, to all appearance, in as 
great wealth and loveliness as_ before. 
But a definite commandment was broken ; 
and therein it was that the whole damage 
and desecration lay. The jurisprudence 
of heaven was at stake; and so, on this 
solitary apple hinged the fate of our 
world. Infidels deride the history. Like 
those wretched arithmetical moralists, 
who make virtue an affair of product, 
and not of principle, they are unable to 
see how the moral grandeur of the trans- 
action just rises, in proportion to the hu- 
mility of its material accompaniments ; 
and so, in the event of our earth bur- 
dened with a curse to its latest genera- 
tions, do we behold at once the truth of 
our principle, and terrible demonstration 
given to the unbroken sanctity of ,the 
Godhead. 

And the same principle ever and anon 
breaks forth in the subsequent dealings 
of God with the world. Let me only 
instance from the history of Israel’s en- 
trance into the promised land. The sil- 
ver and the gold that were taken from 
their enemies, were all to be brought as 
consecrated things into the treasury of 
the Lord. This was a determinate pre- 
cept ; and just because of one violation, 
the progress of the Jewish victories was 
arrested, and the frown of Heaven’s 
offended authority spread disaster and 
dismay over the hosts of Israel. It was 
Achan’s accursed thing which distem- 
pered for a time, and was like to have 
blasted, the whole undertaking. They 
were his goodly Babylonish garment, 
and wedge of gold, and two hundred 
shekels of silver—secreted in the midst 
of an otherwise immaculate camp—that 
called forth the resentment and the reck- 
oning of a God of vengeance ; and, not 
till the whole burden of this provocation 
was swept away—not till the offence, and 
the offending household, were taken forth 
from the midst of the congregation and 
destroyed—did God turn Him from the 


fierceness of his anger, or was the 


jealousy of Heaven appeased, because of 
the injury done to a commandment in- 
tact and unviolable. 

_ And, lastly, what has been so often ex- 
amplified in the history of the Old, is 


ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. DR. ANDREW THOMSON. 


’ 


271 


alike exemplified in the doctrines and 
declarations of the New Testament. “A 
man,’ says the apostle, “is not justified 
by the works of the la y, but by the faith 
of Jesus Christ.” This is a dete: minate 
principle ; but the Judaizing Christians 
would fain have introduced one slight 
and circumstantial exception to it. ‘They 
made a stand for the rite of circumcision ; 
and were willing that all the other works 
of the law should be discharged from the 
matter of our justifying righteousness, 
were there only, along with the faith of 
Christ, a place found for this distinguish- 
ing ordinance of their nation. It is 
against this demand and predilection of 
the Jews that the apostle sets himself, in 
his epistle to the Galatians—where he 
rejects the compromise; and proves, by 
admirable reasoning, that it would not 
only deform the faith of the Gospel, but 
destroy it. 

Admit this, trifling though it may ap- 
pear, and “ Christ is dead in vain ;”” you 
have fallen from your dependence upon 
Him, and he has “ become of no effect 
unto you.” It is thus, that this bold, 
this uncompromising champion of the 
Church’s purity, has bequeathed, in this 
epistle, a precious example to the Chris- 
tian ministers of all ages. What Lu- 
ther, after him, called the article of a 
standing or a falling church, is here de- 
fended from the contact and the contami- 
nation of every deleterious ingredient. 
The materiel of a sinner’s justification 
with God, instead of being partitioned, 
as many would have it, between the 
righteousness of Christ and the right- 
eousness of man, is strenuously contended 
for by the apostle in this argument, as 
being pure, unmixed, and homogeneous. 
The epistle to the Galatians is a compo- 
sition charged throughout with the very 
essence of principle; and the thing to be 
noted is, that while in appearance Paul 
is only warding off from the religion of 
Christ a misplaced or incongruous cere- 
mony, he embarks the whole of his apos- 
tolic strength and apostolic zeal upon the 
contest, and is, in fact, fighting for the 
foundation of the faith. 

This will at once prepare you to un- 
derstand, what I have taken the liberty of 
terming, a characteristic of his theology, 
whose general character I have described 
as being the theology of the Church of 


272 


Scotland. The peculiarity lay in this, 
that present him with a measure, and he, 
of all other men, saw at once, and with 
the force of instant discernment, the prin- 
ciple that was embodied in it. And did 
that principle belong to the class of the 
determinate, he furthermore saw, with 
every sound moralist before him, that he 
could not recede, by one inch or hair- 
breadth, from the assertion of it, without 
making a virtual surrender of the whole. 
The point of resistance then, it is obvi- 
ous, must be at the beginning of the mis- 
chief—or at that part in the border of the 
vineyard, where it first threatened to 
make inroad. It was there he planted 
his footstep ; and there, with the might 
and prowess of a champion, did he ward 
off from our Church, many a hurtful and 
withering contamination. His was never 
a puerile or unmeaning conflict—but a 
conflict of high moral elements. It was 
the warfare of a giant, enlisted on the 
side of some great principle ; and, with 
a heart always in the right place, it was 
this which imparted a substantial recti- 
tude to every cause, and threw a moral 
grandeur over his controversies. 

You are aware that no two things can 
be more dissimilar, than a religion of 
points, anda religion of principles. No 
one will suspect his of being a religion 
of senseless or unmeaning points. Alto- 
gether, there was a manhood in his un- 
derstanding—a strength and a firmness 
in the whole staple of his mind, as re- 
mote as possible from whatever is weakly 
and superstitiously fanciful. It is there- 
fore, you will find, that whenever he laid 
the stress of his zeal or energy on a 
cause—instead of a stress disproportion- 
ate to its importance, there was always 
the weight of some great, some cardinal 
principle underneath to sustain it. It is 
thus, that every subject he undertook was 
throughout charged with sentiment. The 
whole drift and doings of the man were 
instinct with it;and that, too, sentiment 
fresh from the word of God, or warm 
with generous enthusiasm for the best 
interests of the Church and of the spe- 
cles. 

There is one peculiarity by which he 
was signalized above all his fellows; and 
which makes him an incalculable loss, 
both to the Church and to the Country 
at large. We have known men of great 





- ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. DR. ANDREW THOMSON, 


[SERM. 


power, but they wanted promptitude ; and 
we have known men of great promptitude, 
but they wanted power. The former, if 
permitted to concentrate their energies on 
one great object, may, by dint of a rivet- 
ed perseverance, succeed. in its -accow- 
plishment—but they cannot bear to have 
this concentration broken up; and it is 
torture to all their habits, when assailed 
by the importunity of those manifold and 
miscellaneous applications, to which every 
public man is exposed, from the philan- 
thropy of our modern day. The latter 
again—that is, they who have the prompt- 
itude but not the power, facility without 
force, and whose very lightness favours 
both the exceeding variety and velocity 
of their -‘movements,—why, they are alert 
and serviceable, and can acquit themselves 
in a respectable way of any slender or 
secondary part which is put into their 
hands; but then, they want predominance 
and momentum in any one direction to 
which they may betake themselves. But 
in him, never did such ponderous faculties 
meet with such marvellous power of | 
wielding them at pleasure,—insomuch, 
that even on the impulse of most unfore- 
seen occasions, he could bring them im- 
mediately to bear—and that, with sweep- 
ing and resistless effect, on the object be- 
fore him. Such a combination of forces 
enlisted, as all within him was, on the 
side of Christianity, would have been of 
incalculable service in this our day. It 
is true, the land in which we live is yet 
free from the taint and the scandal of so 
gross an abomination; but you cannot 
fail to have remarked, how, mixed up 
with their rancorous politics, there have 
of late been the frequent outbreakings of 
a coarse and revolting=impiety in the 
popular meetings of England. In the 
whole compass of the moral world, we | 
know not a more hideous spectacle than 
plebian infidelity, with its rude invectives, 
its savage and boisterous outcry against 
all the restraints and institutions of the 
gospel. If, indeed, our next war is to be 
a war of principles, then, before the battle 
is begun, the noblest of our champions: 
has fallen. Yet we dare not give up in 
despondency, a cause, which has truth 
for its basis, and the guarantee of Hea- 
ven’s omnipotence for its complete and 
everlasting triumph. In this reeling of 
the nations, this gradual loosening of all 


4XXIT.] 


spirits from the ancient holds of habit and 
of principle—still we cannot fear that 
the Church, the one and indestructible 
Church, though tossed and cradled in the 
storm, will not be riveted more securely 
upon its basis. ‘“ We are distreased, but 
not in despair ; troubled, yet not forsaken ; 
east down, yet not destroyed.” “ Help, 
Lord, when the godly man ceaseth, and 
the righteous fail from the children of 
men.” - 

But let me again offer one word of 
special address to the members of his 
congregation. I have spoken of his re- 
sistance to compromise in all the great 
matters of Christian faith and Christian 
practice. Let me entreat, that though 
dead, he may still speak this lesson to 
you. I would rather, and I am quite 
sure that all along he would, that your 
security before God rested altogether on 
works, or altogether on grace, rather 
than that, like the feet of Nebuchadnez- 
zer’s image, partly of clay, and partly of 
iron, it rested on the motley foundation 
of two unlike and heterogeneous ingre- 
dients. Hold fas. what you have gotten 
from him on this subject ; and be assured 
that if, forgetful of the decision and dis- 
tinctness of his principles, you ever shall 
listen with pleasure to him who vacillates 
from the one to the other, or would at- 
tempt a composition between the right- 
eousness of man, and the righteousness 
of Christ—there is not a likelier method 
in which shipwreck can be made both 
of the faith and the piety of this congre- 
gation. And you know, that while none 
more clear and confident than he in 
preaching the dogmata of his creed, he 
was far, and very far from being a 

reacher of dogmata alone. You recol- 
lect his earnest enforcement of duty in 
all that concerned the relation between 
God and man, and in all that concerned 
the relations of human society. But it 
was duty bottomed on .an evangelical 
ground-work—even on those deep and 
well-laid principles of belief, by which 
alone the righteousness of the life and 
practice is upholden. He was truly a 
preacher of faith—yet his last words in 
this pulpit, may be regarded as his dying 
testimony to the worth of that charity 
which is greater than faith. I do not 
mean the charity of a mere contribution 
by the hand ; but the charity of that love 
30 


ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. DR. ANDREW THOMSON, 


» 


273 


in the heart, which prompts to all the 
services of humanity.® 

I must now satisfy myself with a few 
slight and rapid touches on his character 
asaman. It is a subject I dare hardly 
approach. ‘'T’o myself, he was at all 
times a joyous, hearty, gallant, honour- 
able, and out and out most-trustworthy 
friend—while, in harmony with a former 
observation, there were beautifully pro- 
jected on this broad and general ground- 
work, some of friendship’s finest and 
most considerate delicacies. By far the 
most declared and discernible feature in 
his character, was a dauntless, and direct, 
and right-forward honesty, that needed 
no disguise for itself, and was impatient 
of aught like dissimulation or disguise in 
other men. ‘There were withal a heart 
and a hilarity in his companionship, that 
everywhere carried its own welcomealong 
with it ; and there were none who moved 
with greater acceptance, or wielded a 
greater ascendant over so, wide a circle 
of living society. Christianity does not 
overbear the constitutional varieties either 
of talent or of temperament. After 
the conversion of the apostles, their com- 
plexional differences of mind and char- 
acter remained with them; and there 
can be no doubt that, apart from, and an- 
terior to the influence of the gospel, the 
hand of nature had stamped a generosity, 
and a sincerity, and an openness on the 
subject of our description, among the 
very strongest of the lineaments which 
belong to him. Under an urgent sense 
of rectitude, he delivered himself with 
vigour and with vehemence, in behalf of 
what he deemed to be its cause—but i 
vould have you to discriminate between 
the vehemence of passion and the vclhie- 
mence of sentiment, which, like theugh 
they be in outward expression, are 
wholly different and dissimilar-in then- 
selves. His was, mainly, the vehemence 
of sentiment, which, hurrying him when 
it did, into what he afterwards felt to be 
excesses, were immediately followed up 
by the relentings of a noble nature. The 
pulpit is not the place for the idolatry of 
an unqualified panegyric on any of our 
fellow-mortals—but it is impossible not 


* His last sermon, preached with all his ac- 
customed earnestness and zeal, was a pleading 
in behalf of the Infirmary of Edinburgh. 


OT4 


to acknowledge, that whatever might 
have been his errors, he was right at 
bottom—that truth, and piety, and ardent 
philanthropy formed the substratum of 
his character ; and that the tribute was 


BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR, 


‘[SERM. 


altogether a just one, when the pro- 
foundest admiration, along with the pun- 
gent regrets of his fellow-citizens, did 
follow him to his grave. 


-SERMON XXXIV. 


The Blessedness of considering the Case of the Poor. 


‘ Blessed is he that considereth the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.” 
PsauLM xli. 1. 


Tuere is an evident want of congeni- 
ality between the wisdom of this world, 
and the wisdom of the Christian. The 
term “ wisdom,’ carries my reverence 
along with it. It brings before me a 
grave and respectable character, whose 
rationality predominates over the inferior 
principles of his constitution; andto whom 
I willingly yield that peculiar homage 
which the enlightened, and the judicious, 
and the manly, are sure to exact from a 
surrounding neighbourhood. Now, so 
Jong as this wisdom has for its object 
some secular advantage, I yield it an un- 
qualified reverence. It is a reverence 
which all understand, and all sympathise 
with. If, in private life, a man be wise 
in the management of his farm, or his for- 
tune, or his family; or if, in public life, 
he have wisdom to steer an empire 
through all its difficulties, and to carry it 
to aggrandisement and renown—the re- 
spect which I feel for such wisdom as 
this is most cordial and entire, and sup- 
ported by the universal acknowledgement 
of all whom I call to attend to it. 

Let me now suppose that this wisdom 
has changed its object—that the man 
whom I am representing to exemplify 
this respectable attribute, instead of being 
wise for time, is wise for eternity—-that 
he labours by the faith and sanctification 
of the gospel for unperishable honours — 
that, instead of listening to him with ad- 
miration at his sagacity, as he talks of bu- 
siness, or politics, or agriculture, we are 
compelled to listen to him talking of the 
hope within the veil, and of Christ being 
the power of God, and the wisdom of 


God, unto salvation:—what becomes of 
your respect for him now? Are there 
not some of you who are quite sensible 
that this respect is greatly impaired, since 
the wisdom of the man has taken so unac- 
countable a change in its object and in its 
direction? The truth is, that the greater 
part of the world feel no respect at all for 
a wisdom which they do not comprehend, 
They may love the innocence of a deci. 
dedly religious character, but they feel no 
sublime or commanding sentiment of ve- 
neration for its wisdom. All the truth 
of the Bible, and all the grandeur of eter- 
nity, will not redeem it from a certain de- 
gree of contempt. Terms which lower, 
undervalue, and degrade, suggest them- 
selves to the mind; and strongly dispose 
itto throw a mean and disagreeable co- 
louring over the man, who, sitting loose 
to the objects of the world, has become al- 
together a Christian. It is needless to 
expatiate ; but what I have seen myself, 
and what must have fallen under the ob- 
servation of many whom I address, carry 
in them the testimony of experience to 
the assertion of the apostle, “that the 
things of the spirit of God are foolishness 
to the natural man, neither can he know 
them, for they are spiritually discerned.” 

Now, what I have said of the respecta- 
ble attribute of wisdom, is applicable, with 
almost no variation, to another attribute 
of the human character, to which I 
would assign the gentler epithet of “ love- 
ly.” he attribute to which I allude, is 
that of benevolence. This is the burden 
of every poet’s song, and every eloquent 
and interesting enthusiast gives it his tes- 


— XxxIv,] 


_timony. I speak not of the enthusiasm 
of methodists and devotees, | speak of 
that enthusiasm of fine sentiment which 
embellishes the page of elegant literature, 
and is addressed to all her sighing and 
amiable votaries, in the various forms of 
novel, and poetry, and dramatic entertain. 
ment. You would think if any thing 
could bring the Christian at one with the 
world around him, it would be this ; and 
that in the ardent benevolence which fig- 
ures in novels, and sparkles in poetry, 
there would be an entire congeniality with 
the benevolence of the gospel. I venture 
to say, however, that there never existed 
a stronger repulsion between two con- 
tending sentiments, than between the be- 
nevolence of the Christian, and the bene- 
volence which is the theme of elegant 
literatare—that the one, with all its ac- 
companiments of tears, and sensibilities, 
and interesting cottages, is neither felt nor 
understood by the Christian as such; and 
the other, with its work and its labour of 
love, its enduring hardness as a good sol- 
dier of Jesus Christ, and its living, not to 
itself but to the will of Him who died for 
us, and who rose again, is not only not 
understood, but positively nauseated, by 
the poetical amateur. 

But the contrast does not stop here. 
The benevolence of the gospel is not only 
at antipodes with that of the visionary 
sons and daughters of poetry, but it even 
varies in some of its most distinguishing 
features from the experimental benevo- 
lence of real and familiar life. The fan- 
tastic benevolence of poetry is now indeed 
pretty well exploded; and, in the more 
popular works of the age, there is a be- 
nevolence of a far truer and more substan- 
tial kind substituted in its place—the be- 
nevolence which you meet with among 
men of business and observation—the be- 
nevolence which bustles and finds em- 
ployment among the most public and or- 
dinary scenes; and which seeks for objects, 
not where the flower blows loveliest, and 
the stream, with its gentle murmurs, falls 
sweetest on the ear ; but finds them in its 
every-day walks, goes in quest of them 
through the heart of the great city, and is 
not afraid to meet them in the most putrid 
lanes and loathsome receptacles. 

Now, it must be acknowledged, that this 
benevolence is of a far more respectable 
kind than that poetic sensibility, which 


BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR. 


» 
« 


275 


is of no use, because it admits of no applhi- 
cation. Yet I am not afraid to say, that, 
respectable as it is, it does not come up to 
the benevolence of the Christian ; and is 
at variance, in some of its most capital in- 
gredients, with the morality of the gospel. 
It is well, and very well as far as it goes, 
and that Christian is wanting to the will 
of his Master, who refuses to share and 
go along with it. The Christian will do 
all this, but he would like to do more; 
and it is at the precise point where he. 
proposes to do more, that he finds him- 
self abandoned by the co-operation and 
good wishes of those who had hitherto 
supported him. The Christian goes as 
far as the votary of this useful benevo- 
lence; but then he would like to go fur- 
ther, and this is the point at which he is 
mortified to find that his old coadjutors re- 
fuse to go along with him; and that, in- 
stead of being strengthened by their assist- 
ance, he has their contempt and their ri- 
dicule, or, at all events, their total want 
of sympathy to contend with. 

The truth is, that the benevolence I 
allude to, with all its respectable air 
of business and good sense, 1s altogether — 
a secular benevolence. Through all the 
extent of its operations, it carries in it no 
reference to the eternal duration of its 
object. Time, and the accommodations 
of time, form all its object, and all its ex- 
ercise. It labours, and often with suc- 
cess, to provide for its object a warm and a 
well-sheltered tenement; but it looks not 
beyond the few little years when the 
earthly house of this tabernacle shall be 
dissolved, when the soul shall be driven 
from its perishable tenement, and the only 
benevolence it will acknowledge or care 
for, will be the benevolence of those who 
have directed it to a building not made 
with hands, eternal inthe heavens. This, 
then, is the point at which the benev- 
olence of the gospel separates from that 
worldly benevolence, to which, as far as 
it goes, I offer my cheerful and unmin- 
gled testimony. The one minds earthly 
things, the other has its conversation in 
heaven. Even when the immediate ob- 
ject of both is the same, you will gener- 
ally perceive an evident distinction in the 
principle. Individuals, for example, may 
co-operate and will often meet in the 
same room, be members of the same 40- 
ciety, and go hand in hand most cordially 


276 


togethei for the education of the poor. 
But the forming habits of virtuous indus- 
try, and good members of society, which 
are the sole consideration in the heart of 
the worldly philanthropist, are but mere 
accessaries in the heart of the Christian. 
The main impulse of his benevolence, 
ies in furnishing the poor with the 
means of enjoying that bread of life 
which came down from heaven, and in 
introducing them to the knowledge of 
those Scriptures which are the power of 
God unto salvation to every one who 
believeth. Now, it is so far a blessing 
to the world, that there is a co-operation 
in the immediate object. But what I 
contend for, is, that there is a total want 
of congeniality in the principle; that the 
moment you strip the institution of its 
temporal advantages, and make it repose 
on the naked grandeur of eternity, it 
is fallen from, or laughed at, as one of 
the chimeras of fanaticism ; and left to 
the despised efforts of those whom they 
esteem to be unaccountable people, who 
sabscribe for ,missions, and squander 
their money on Bible societies. Strange 
effect, you would think, of eternity to de- 
grade the object with which it is con- 
nected! But so it is. The blaze of 
glory, which is thrown around the mar- 
tyrdom of a patriot or a_ philosopher, 
is refused to the martyrdom of a Chris- 
tian. When a statesman dies, who lifted 
his intrepid voice for the liberty of the 
species, we hear of nothing but of the 
shrines and the monuments of immor- 
tality. Put into his place one of those 
sturdy reformers, who, unmoved by coun- 
cils and inquisitions, stood up for the 
religious liberties of the world: and it is 
no sooner done, than the full tide of con- 
genial sympathy and admiration is at 
once arrested. We have all heard of 
the benevolent apostleship of Howard, 
and what Christian will be behind his 
fellows with his applauding testimony ? 
But will they, on the other hand, share 
his enthusiasm, when he tells them of the 
apestleship of Paul, who, in the sublimer 
senze of the term, accomplished the lib- 
erty of the captive, and brought them 
that sat in darkness out of the prison- 
housc? Will they share in the holy 
benevolence of the apostle, when he pours 
out his ardent effusions in behalf of his 
countrymen? They were at that time 


BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR. 


_ [SERM. 


on the eve of the cruellest sufferings. 
The whole vengeance of the Roman 
power was mustering to bear upon them. 
The siege and destruction of their city 
form one of the most dreadful tragedies 
in the history of war. Yet Paul seems 
to have had another object in his eye. It 
was their souls and their eternity which 
engrossed him. Can you sympathise 
with him in this principle; or join in 
kindred benevolence with him, when he 
says, that “ my heart’s desire and prayer 
for Israel is that they might be saved ?” 
But, to bring my list of examples to a 
close, the most remarkable of them all 
may be collected from the history of the 
present attempts which are now making 
to carry the knowledge of divine revela- 
tion into the Pagan and uncivilized coun- 
tries of the world. Now, it may be my 
ignorance, but I am certainly not aware 
of the fact—that without a book of reli- 
gious faith ; without religion, in fact, being 
the errand and occasion, we have ever 
been able in modern times so far to com: 
pel the attention and to subdue the habite 
of savages, as to throw in among them 
the use and the possession of a written 
language. Certain it is, however, at all 
events, that this very greatest step in the 
process of converting a wild man of the 
woods into a humanized member of 
society, has been accomplished by Chris- 
tian missionaries. They have put into 
the hands of barbarians this mighty in- 
strument of a written language, and the 
have taught them how to use it.* They 
have formed an orthography for wander- 
ing and untutored savages. They have 
given a shape and a name to their barba- 
rous articulations; and the children of 
men, who lived on the prey of the wilder- 
ness, are now forming in village schools 
to the arts and the decencies of cultivated 


* As, for instance, Mr. John Elliot, and the 
Moravian brethren among the Indians of New 
England and Pennsylvania; the Moravians in 
South America; Mr. Hans Egede, and the Mo- 
ravians in Greenland; the latter in Labrador, 
among the Esquimaux; the Missionaries in 
Otaheite, and other South Sea Islands; and Mr. 
Brunton, under the patronage of the Society for 
Missions to Africa and the East, who reduced 
the language of the Susoos, a nation on the 
coast of Africa, to writing and grammatical form, 
and printed in it a spelling-book, vocabulary, 
catechism, and some tracts. Other instances 
besides might be given. 


XXXIV. ] 


life. Now, I am not involving you in 
the controversy, whether civilization 
should precede Christianity, or Chris- 
tianity should precede civilization. It is 
not to what has been said on the subject, 
but to what has been done, that we are 
pointing your attention. We appeal to 
the fact; and as an illustration of the 
principle we have been attempting to lay 
before you, we call upon you to mark the 
feelings, and the countenance, and the 
language, of the mere academic moralist, 
when you put into his hand the authen- 
tic and proper document where the fact 
is recorded—we mean a missionary re- 
port, or a missionary magazine. We 
know that there are men who have so 
much of the firm nerve and hardihood of 
philosophy about them, as not to be re- 
pelled from truth in whatever shape, 
or from whatever quarter, it comes to 
them. But there are others of a humbler 
cast, who have transferred their homage 
from the omnipotence of truth, to the 
omnipotence of a name; who, because 
missionaries, while they are accomplish- 
ing the civilization and labouring also for 
the eternity of savages, have lifted the 
ery of fanaticism against them ; who, be- 
cause missionaries revere the word of God, 
and utter themselves in the language of 
the New Testament, nauseate every word 
_ that comes from them as overrun with 
the flavour and phraseology of method- 
ism; who are determined, in short, to 
abominateall that is missionary, and suffer 
the very sound of the epithet to fill their 
minds with an overwhelming association 
of repugnance, and prejudice, and disgust 
We would not have counted this so re- 
markable an example, had it not been 
that missionaries are accomplishing the 
very object on which the advocates for 
civilization love to expatiate. ‘They are 
working for temporal good far more ef- 
fectually than any adventurer in the 
cause ever did before; but mark the 
want of congeniality between the beney- 
olence of this world and the benevolence 
of the Christian; they incur contempt, 
because they are working for spiritual 
and eternal good also: Nor do the 
earthly blessings which they scatter so 
abundantly in their way, redeem from 
scorn the purer and the nobler principle 
which inspires them. 
These observations seem to be an ap- 


BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR. 


277 


plicable introduction to the subject before 
us. I call your attention to the way in 
which the Bible enjoins us to take up the 
care of the poor. It does not say in the 
text before us, Commisserate the poor ; 
for, if it said no more than this, it would 
leave their necessities to be provided for 
by the random ebullitions of an impetu- 
ous and unreflecting sympathy. It pro- 
vides them with a better security than 
the mere feeling of compassion—a feel- 
ing which, however useful for the pur- 
pose of excitement, must be controlled 
and regulated. . Feeling is but a faint 
and fluctuating security. Fancy may 
mislead it. The sober realities of life may 
disgust it. Disappointment may extin- 
guish it. Ingratitude may embitter it. 
Deceit, with its counterfeit representa- 
tions, may allure it to the wrong object. 
At all events, Time is the little circle 
within which it in general expatiates. 
It needs the impression of sensible ob- 
jects to sustain it; nor can it enter with 
zeal or with vivacity into the wants of 
the abstract and invisible soul. The 
Bible, then, instead of leaving the relief 
of the poor to the mere instinct of sym- 
pathy, makes it a subject for considera- 
tion—Blessed is he that considereth the 
poor—a grave and prosaic exercise I do 
allow, and which makes no figure in 
these high-wrought descriptions, where 
the exquisite tale of benevolence is made 
up of all the sensibilities of tenderness 
on the one hand, and of all the ecstatics 
of gratitude on the other. The Bible 
rescues the cause from the mischief to 
which a heedless or unthinking sensi- 
bility would expose it. It brings it un- 
der the cognizance of a higher faculty— 
a faculty of steadier operation than to be 
weary In well-doing, and of sturdier en- 
durance than to give it up in disgust. It 
calls you to consider the poor. It makes 
the virtue of relieving them a matter of 
computation as well as of sentiment ; 
and, in so doing, it puts you beyond the 
reach of the various delusions, by which 
you are at one time led to prefer the in- 
dulgence of pity to the substantial inter- 
est of its object ; at another, are led to re- 
tire chagrined and disappointed from the 
scene of duty, because you have not met 
with the gratitude or the honesty that 
you laid your account with ; at another, 
are led to expend all your anxieties upon 


278 


the accommodation of time, and to over- 
look eternity It is the office of consid- 
eration to save you from all these falla- 
cies. Under its tutorage, attention to the 
wants of the poor ripens into principle. 
I want to press its advantages upon you, 
for [ can in no other way recommend 
the Society whose claims I am appointed 
to lay before you, so effectually to your 
pitrenage. My time will only permit 
me to lay before you a few of their 
advantages, and [ shall therefore confine 
myself to two leading particulars. 


I. The man who considers the poor, 
instead of slumbering over the emotions 
of a useless sensibility, among those 
imaginary beings whom poetry and. ro- 
mance have laid before him in all the 
elegance of fictitious history, will bestow 
the labour and the attention of actual 
business among the poor of the real and 
the living world. Benevolence is the 
buiden of every romantic tale, and of 
every poet's song. It is dressed out in 
all the fairy enchantments of imagery 
and eloquence. All is beauty to the eye 
and music to the ear. Nothing seen but 
pictures of felicity, and nothing heard 
but the soft whispers of gratitude and af- 
fection. The reader is carried along by 
this soft and delighted representation of 
virtue. He accompanies his hero through 
all the fancied varieties of his history. 
He goes along with him to the cottage of 
poverty and disease, surrounded, as we 
may suppose, with all the charms of ru- 
ral obscurity, and where the murmurs of 
an adjoining rivulet accord with the 
finer and more benevolent sensibilities of 
the mind. He enters this enchanting 
retirement, and meets with a picture of 
distress, adorned in all the elegance of 
fiction. Perhaps a father laid on a bed 
of languishing, and supported by the la- 
bours of a pious and eHeciobete family, 
where kindness breathes in every word, 
and anxiety sits upon every countenance 
-—-where the industry of his children 
struzgles in vain to supply the cordials 
which his poverty denies him—-where 
nature sinks every hour, and all feel a 
gloomy foreboding, which they strive to 
concea!, and tremble to express. The 
hero of romance enters, and the glance 
of his benevolent eye enlightens this 
darkest recess uf misery. He turns him 


BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR. 





[SERM. 


to the bed of languishing, tells the sick 
man that there is still hope, and smiles 
comfort on his despairing children. Day 
after day he repeats his kindness and his 
charity. They hail his approach as the 
footsteps of an angel of mercy. The 
father lives to bless his deliverer. ‘The 
family reward his benevolence by the 
homage of an affectionate gratitude ; and 
in the piety of their evening prayer, 
offer up thanks to the God of heaven, 
for opening the hearts of the rich to 
kindly and beneficent attentions. ‘The 
reader weeps with delight. The visions 
of paradise play before his fancy. His 
tears flow, and his heart dissolves in all 
the luxury of tenderness. 

Now, we do not deny that the mem- 
bers of the Destitute Sick Society may at 
times have met with some such delightful 
scene, to soothe, and to encourage them. 
But put the question to any of their 
visitors, and he will not fail to tell you, 
that if they had never moved but when 
they had something like this to excite 
and to gratify their hearts, they would 
seldom ha¥e moved at all; and their 
usefulness to the poor would have been 
reduced to a very humble fraction of 
what they have actually done for them. 
What is this but to say, that it is the - 
business of a religious instructor to give 
you, not the elegant, but the true repre- 
sentation of benevolence—to represent it 
not so much as a luxurious indulgence 
to the finer sensibilities of the mind, 
but according to the sober declaration of 
Scripture, asa work and as a labour— 
as a business in which you must encoun- 
ter vexation, opposition, and fatigue; 
where you are not always to meet with 
that elegance which allures the fancy, or 
with that humble and retired adversity, 
which interests the more tender propen- 
sities of the heart; but as a business 
where reluctance must often be overcome 
by a sense of duty, and where, though 
oppressed at every step, by envy, disgust 
and disappointment, you are bound to 
persevere, in obedience to the law of 
God, and the sober instigations of prin- 
ciple. 

The benevolence of the gospel lies in 
action. The benevolence of our ficti- 
tious writers, isa kind of high-wrought 
delicacy of feeling and sentiment. ‘The 
one dissipates all its fervour in sighs, and 


* 


XXXIV,] 


tears, and idle aspirations—the other re- 
serves its strength for efforts and execu- 
tion. The one regards it as a luxurious 
enjoyment for the heart—the other, as a 
work and a business for the hand. The 
one sits in indolence, and broods, in 
visionary rapture, over its schemes of 
ideal philanthropy—the other _ steps 
abroad, and enlightens, by its presence, 
the dark and pestilential hovels of disease. 
The one wastes away in empty ejacula- 
tion—the other gives time and trouble to 
the work of beneficence—gives education 
to the orphan—provides clothes for the 
naked, and lays food on the tables of the 
hungry. The one is indolent and 
capricious, and often does mischief by 
the occasional overflowings of a whim- 
sical and ill-directed charity—the other 
is vigilant and discerning, and takes care 
lest its distributions be injudicious, and 
the efforts of benevolence be misapplied. 
The one is soothed with the luxury of 
feeling, and reclines in easy and indolent 
satisfaction—the other shakes off the de- 
ceitful langour of contemplation and soli- 
tude, and delights in a scene of activity. 
Remember, that virtue, in general, is not 
to feel but to do—not merely to conceive 
a purpose, but to carry that purpose into 


- execution—not merely to be overpowered 


by the impression of a sentiment, but to 
practise what it loves, and to imitate 
what it admires. 

To be benevolent in speculation, is of- 
ten to be selfish in action and in reality. 
The vanity and the indolence of man de- 
lude him into a thousand inconsistencies. 
He professes to love the name and the 
semblance of virtue; but the labour of 
exertion and of self-denial, terrifies him 
from attempting it. The emotions of 
kindness are delightful to his bosom, 
but then they are little better than a sel- 
fish indulgence. ‘They terminate in his 
own enjoyment. ‘They are a mere re- 


finement of luxury. His eye melts over | 


the picture of fictitious distress, while not 


misery by which he is surrounded. It 
visionary heart in going over a scene of 
fancied affliction, because here there is 
no sloth to overcome—no avaricious pro- 
pensity to control—no offensive or dis- 
gusting circumstance to allay the un- 


BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR. 


| 





’ 


279 


a soft and elegant picture is calculated 
to awaken. It is not so easy to be bene- 
volent in action and in reality, be- 
cause here there is fatigue to undergo— - 
there is time and money to give—there is 
the mortifying spectacle of vice, and folly, 
and ingratitude, to encounter. We like 
to give you the fair picture of love to 
man; because to throw over it false and 
fictitious embellishments, is injurious’ to 
its cause. They elevate the fancy by 
romantic visions which can never be 
realized. They embitter the heart by 
the most severe and mortifying disap: 
pointments, and often force us to retire in 
disgust from what heaven has intended 
to be the theatre of our discipline and 
preparation. ‘Take the representation 
of the Bible. Benevolence is a work 
and a labour. It often calls for the 
severest efforts of vigilance and industry 
—a habit of action not to be acquired in 
the schools of fine sentiment, but in the 
walks of business; in the dark and dis- 
mal receptacles of misery ; in the hospi- 
tals of disease ; in the putrid lanes of our 
great cities where poverty dwells in lank 
and ragged wretchedness, agonized with 
pain, faint with hunger, and shivering in 
a frail and unsheltered tenement. 

You are not to conceive yourself a 
real lover of your species, and entitled to 
the praise or the reward of benevolence, 
because you weep over a fictitious repre- 
sentation of human misery. A man 
may weep in the indolence of a studious 
and contemplative retirement; he may 
breathe all the tender aspirations of hu- 
manity ; but what avails all this warm 
and effusive benevolence, if it is never 
exerted—if it never rises to execution— 
if it never carry him to the accomplish- 
ment of a single benevolent purpose—if 
it shrink from activity, and sicken at the 
pain of fatigue? It is easy, indeed, to 
come forward with the cant and hypo- 
crisy of fine sentiment—to have a heart 


‘trained to the emotions of benevolence, 
a tear is left for the actual starvation and | 


while the hand refuses the labour of dis- 


charging its offices—to weep for amuse- 
is easy to indulge the imaginations of a) 


ment, and have nothing to spare for hu- 
man suffering, but the tribute of an indo- 
lent and unmeaning sympathy. Many 
of you must be acquainted with that cor- 
ruption of Christian doctrine which has 
been termed Antinomianism. It pro- 


mingled impression of sympathy which fesses the highest reverence for the Su- 


280 


preme Being ; while it refuses obedience 
to the lessons of His authority. It pro- 
fesses the highest gratitude for the suffer- 
ings of Christ; while it refuses that 
course of life and action which He de- 
mands of his followers. It professes to 
udore the tremendous Majesty of heaven, 
and to weep in shame and in sorrow 
over the sinfulness of degraded humanity ; 
while every day it insults heaven by the 
enormity of its misdeeds, and evinces the 
insincerity of its repentance by its wilful 
perseverance in the practice of iniquity. 

‘This Antinomianism is generally con- 
demned; and none reprobate it more 
than the votaries of fine sentiment—your 
men of taste and elegant literature—your 
epicures of feeling, who riot in all the 
luxury of theatrical emotion; and who, 
in their admiration of what is tender, and 
beautiful, and cultivated, have always 
turned with discust from the doctrines of a 
sour and illiberal theology. We may say 
to such, as Nathan to David, “ Thou art 
the man.” Theirs is, to all intents and 
purposes, Antinomianism—and an Anti- 
nomianism of a far more dangerous and 
deceitful kind, than the Antinomianism 
of a spurious and pretended orthodoxy. 
In the Antinomianism of religion, there 
is nothing to fascinate or deceive you. It 
wears an air of repulsive bigotry, more 
fitted to awaken disgust, than to gain the 
admiration of proselytes. There is a 
glaring deformity in its aspect, which 
alarms you at the very outset, and is an 
outrage to that natural morality, which, 
dark and corrupted as it is, is still strong 
enough to lift its loud remonstrances 
against it. But, in the Antinomianism 
of high-wrought sentiment, there is a 
deception far more insinuating. It steals 
upon you under the semblance of virtue. 
[t is supported by the delusive colouring 
of imagination and poetry. It has all 
the graces and embellishments of litera- 
tureto recommend it. Vanity is soothed, 
and conscience lulls itself to repose in 
this dream of feeling and of indolence. 

Let us dismiss these lying vanities, and 
regulate our lives by the truth and sober- 
ness of the New Testament. Benevo- 
lence is not in word and in tongue, but 
im deed and in truth. It is a business 
with men as they are, and with human 
life as drawn by the rough hand of expe- 
rience. It isa duty which you must per- 


BLE:SEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR. 


(Sena 


form at the call of principle; though 
there be no voice of eloquence to give 
splendour to your exertions, and no mu- 
sic of poetry to lead your willing foot- 
steps through the bowers of enchantment. 
It is not the impulse of high and ecstatic 
emotion. It is an exertion of principle. 
You must go to the poor man’s cottage, 
though no verdure flourish around it, and 
no rivulet be nigh to delight you by the 
gentleness of its murmurs. If you look 
for the romantic simplicity of fiction, you 
will be disappointed ; but it is your duty 
to persevere, in spite of every discourage- 
ment. Benevolence is not merely a feel- 
ing, but a principle—not a dream of rap- 
ture for the fancy to indulge in, but a 
business for the hand to execute. ; 

It must now be obvious to all of you, 
that it is not enough that you give money, 
and add your name to the contributions 
of charity. You must give it with judg- 
ment. You must give your time and 
your attention. You must descend to 
the trouble of examination. You must 
rise from the repose of contemplation, 
and make yourself acquainted with the 
object of your benevolent exercises. Will 
he husband your charity with care, or 
will he squander it away in idleness and 
dissipation? Will he satisfy himself _ 
with the brutal luxury of the moment, 
and neglect the supply of his more sub- 
stantial necessities, or suffer his children 
to be trained in ignorance and depravity ? 
Will charity corrupt him into slothfal- 
ness? What is his peculiar necessity ? 
Is it the want of health, or the want of 
employment? Is it the pressure of a 
numerous family? Does he need medi- 
cine to administer to the diseases of his 
children? Does he need fuel or raiment 
to protect them from the inclemency of 
winter 2 Does he need money to satisfy 
the yearly demands of his landlord ; or 
to purchase books, and to pay for the 
education of his offspring ? 

‘To give money, is not to do all the 
work and labour of benevolence. You 
must go tothe poor man’s sick bed. You 
must lend your hand tu the work of 
assistance. You must examine his ac- 
counts. You must try to recover those 
debts which are due to his family. You 
must try to recover those wages which 
are detained by the injustice or the rapa- 
city of his master. You must employ 


> 


this individual to the cause. 


KRXIV.] 


your mediation with his superiors. You 
must represent to them the necessities of 
his situation. You must solicit their 
assistance, and awaken their feelings to 
thetale of his calamity. This is benevo- 
lence in its plain,and sober, and substan- 
tial reality ; though eloquence may have 
withheld is imagery, and poetry may 
have denied its graces and its embellish- 
ments. ‘his is true and unsophisticated 
goodness. It may be recorded in no 
earthly documents; but, if done under 
the influence of Christian principle—in 
a word, if done unto Jesus, it 1s written 
in the book of heaven, and will give a 
new. lustre to that crown to which his 
disciples look forward in time, and will 
wear through eternity. 

You have all heard of the division of 
labour, and I wish you to understand, 
that the advantage of this principle may 
be felt as much in the operations of .cha- 
rity, as in the operations of trade and of 
manufactures. ‘The work of beneficence 
does not lie in the one act of giving 
money ; there must be the act of attend- 
ance ; there must be the act of inquiry; 
there must be the act of judicious appli- 
cation. But I can conceive that an indi- 
vidual may be so deficient in the varied 
experience and attention which a work so 
extensive demands, that he may retire in 
disgust and discouragement from the 
practice of charity altogether. The in- 
stitution of a Society such as this, saves 
It takes 
upon itself all the subsequent acts in the 
work and labour of love, and restricts 
his part to the mere act of giving money. 
It fills the middle space between the dis- 
pensers and the recipients of charity. 
The habits of many who now hear me, 
may disqualify them for the work of 
examination. ‘They may have no time 
for it; they may live at a distance from 
the objects ; they may neither know how 
to introduce, nor how to conduct them- 
selves in the management of all the de- 
tails; their want of practice and of expe- 
rience may disable them for the work of 
repelling imposition; they may try to 
gain the necessary habits ; and it is right 
that every individual among us should 
each, in his own sphere, consider the 
poor, and qualify themselves for a judi- 
cious and discriminating charity. But, 


BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR. 


» 


281 


Relief of the Destitute Sick, is an instru- 
ment ready made to our hands. Avail 
yourselves of this instrument immediate- 
ly; and, by the easiest part of the exer- 
cise of charity, which is to give money, 
you carry home to the poor all the benent 
of its most difficult exercises.* 

The experience which you want, the 
members of this laudable Society are in 
possession of. By the work and observa- 
tion of years, a stock of practical wisdom 
is now accumulated among them. They 
have been long inured to all that is loath- 
some and discouraging in this good 
work; and they have nerve, and hardi- 
hood, and principle, to front it) ‘They 
are every way qualified to be the carriers 
of your bounty, for it is a path they have 
long travelled in. Give the money, and 
these conscientious men will soon bring 
it into contact with the right objects. 
They know the way through all the ob- 
scurities of this metropolis ; and they can 
bring the offerings of your charity to 
people whom you will never see, and 
into houses you will never enter. It is 
not easy to conceive, far less to compute 
the extent of human misery; but these 
men can give you experience for it. 
They can show you their registers of the 
sick and of the dying; they are familiar 
with disease in all its varieties of faintness, 
and breathlessness, and pain.—Sad union! 
they are called to witness it in conjunction 
with poverty ; and well do they know 
that there is an eloquence in the imploring 
looks of these helpless poor, which no 
description can set before you. Oh! my 
brethren, figure to yourselves the calamt- 
ty in al] its soreness, and measure your 
bounty by the actual greatness of the 
claims, and not by the feebleness of their 
advocate. 

I have trespassed upon your patience ; 
but, at the hazard of carrying my address 
toa length that is unusual, I must still 
say more. Nor would I ever forgive 
myself if I neglected to set the eternity 
of the poor in all its importance before 
you. ‘This is the second point of consid- 








* A Society for the Destitute Sick, is noi 
nearly liable to such an extent of objection, as @ 
Society for the Relief of General Indigence. 
But it were well, if they kept themselves rigidly 
to their assigned object; and that the cases to 
which they administered their aid were compe 


in the mean time, the Society for the! tently certified. 


36 


~ 


282 - 


eration to which I wish to direct you. 
The man who considers the poor, will 
give his chief anxiety to the wants of their 
eternity. It must be evident to all of you, 
that this anxiety is little felt. I do not 
appeal for the evidence of this to the sel- 
fish part of mankind—there we are not 
to expect it. I goto those who are really 
benevolent—who have a wish to make 
others happy, and who take trouble in so 
doing; and it is a striking observation, 
how little the salvation of these others is 
the object of that benevolence which 
makes them so amiable. It will be found, 
that, in by far the greater number of in- 
stances, this principle is all consumed on 
the accommodations of time, and the ne- 
cessities of the body. It is the meat 
which feeds them—the garment which 
covers them—the house which shelters 
them—the money which purchases all 
things: these, I say, are what form the 
chief topics of benevolent anxiety. Now, 
‘ve do not mean to discourage this princi- 
ple. We cannot.afford it; there is too 
little of it; and it forms too refreshing an 
exception to that general selfishness which 
runs throughout the haunts of business 
and ambition, for us to say any thing 
against it. We are not cold-blooded 
enough to refuse our delighted concur- 
rence to an exercise so amiable in its 
principle, and so pleasing in the warm 
and comfortable spectacle which it lays 
before us. 

The poor, it is true, ought never to 
forget, that it is to their own industry, 
and to the wisdom and economy of their 
own management, that they are to look 
for the elements of subsistence—that if 
idleness and prodigality shall lay hold of 
the mass of our population, no benevo- 
lence, however unbounded, can ever re- 
pair a mischief so irrecoverable—that if 
they will not labour for themselves, it is 
not in the power of the rich to create 
a sufficiency for them ; and that though 
every heart were opened, and every 
purse emptied in the cause, it would ab- 
solutely go for nothing towards forming 
a well-fed, a well-!odged, or a well-condi- 
tioned peasantry. Still, however, there 
are cases which no foresight could pre- 
vent, and no industry could provide for 
— where the blow falls heavy and unex- 
pected on some devoted son or daughter 
of misfortune,and where, though thought- 


BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR. 


[SERM. 


lessness and folly may have had their 
share, benevolence, not very nice in its 
calculations, will feel the overpowering 
claim of actual helpless, and imploring 
misery. Now, I again offer my cheer- 
ful testimony to such benevolence as this; 
I count it delightful to see it singling out 
its object, and sustaining it against the 
cruel pressure of age and of indigence; 
and when I enter a cottage where I seea 
warmer fireside, or a more substantial 
provision, than the visible means can ac- 
count for, I say that the landscape, in all 
its summer glories, does not offer an ob- 
ject so gratifymg, as when referred to 
the vicinity of the great man’s house, and 
the people who live in it, and am told 
that I will find my explanation there. 
Kind and amiable people! your beney- 
olence is most lovely in its display, but 
oh! it is perishable in its consequences. 
Does it never occur to you, that in a few 
years this favourite will die—that he will 
go to the place where neither cold nor 
hunger will reach him, but that a mighty 
interest remains, of which, both of us 
may know the certainty, though neither 
you nor I can calculate the extent. Your 
benevolence is too short-—it does not 
shoot far enough a-head—it is like regal- 
ing a child with a sweetmeat or a toy, 
and then abandoning the happy unreflect- 
ing infant to exposure. You make the 
poor old man happy with your crumbs 
and your fragments, but he is an infant 
on the mighty range of infinite duration ; 
and will you leave the soul, which has 
this infinity to go through, to its chance? 
How comes it that the grave should 
throw so impenetrable a shroud over the 
realities of eternity 2 How comes it that 
heaven, and hell, and judgment, should 
be treated as so many nonentities ; and 
that there should be as little real and op- 
erative sympathy felt for the soul, which 
lives for ever, as for the body after it 
is dead, or for the dust into which it 
moulders ? Eternity is longer than time; 
the arithmetic, my brethren, is all on our 
side upon this question ; and the wisdom 
which calculates, and guides itself by 
calculation, gives its weighty and respect- 
able support to what may be called the 
benevolence of faith. 

Now, if there be one employment more 
fitted than another to awaken this benev- 
olence, it is the peculiar employment 


2 


XXXIV.] 


BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR. 283 


of that Society for which I am now | 
pleading. I would have anticipated such | soms, its abundant produce, and its pro- 
benevolence from the situation they occu- | gressive ascent through all the varieties 
py, and the information before the public | incidental to a sound and a prosperous 
bears testimony to the fact. The truth is, tree. But if it were diseased in its infan- 
that the diseases of the body may be|cy, and ready to perish, and if it were 
looked upon as so many outlets through | restored by management and artificial ap- 
which the soul finds its way to eternity. | plications, then you would say of this tree 
Now, it is at these outlets that the mem-| that it was saved ; and the very term im- 
bers of this Society have stationed them-, plies some previous state of uselessness 
selves. ‘This is the interesting point of | and corruption. What, then, are we to 
survey at which they stand, and from} make of the frequent occurrence of this 
which they command a look of both, term in the New Testament, as applied 
worlds. They have placed themselves | to a human being? If men come into 
in the avenues which lead from time to/ this world pure and innocent ; and have 
eternity, and they have often to witness nothing more to do but to put forth the 


its beautiful foliage, its flourishing blos- 





the awful transition of a soul hovering at | 
the entrance—strugeling its way through | 
the valley of the shadow of death, and at | 
last breaking loose from the confines of | 
all that is visible. Do you think it likely 

that men, with such spectacles before 

them, will withstand the sense of eterni- 

ty? No, my brethren, they cannot, they 

have not. Eternity, I rejoice to an- 

nounce to you, is not forgotten by them ; 

and wita their care for the diseases of | 
the body, they are neither blind nor 
indifferent to the fact, that the soul is dis- 
eased also. We know it well. There 
is an indolent and superficial theology, 
which turns its eyes from the danger, 
and feels no pressing call for the applica- | 
tion of the remedy—which reposes more 
in its own vague and self-assumed con- 
ceptions of the mercy of God, than in the 








powers with which nature has endowed 
them, and so to rise through the proeres- 
sive stages of virtue and excellence, to 
the rewards of immortality, you would 
not say of these men that they were sav- 
ed when they were translated to these re- 
wards. These rewards of man are the 
natural effects of his obedience, and the 
term saved is not at all applicable to such 
a supposition. But the God of the Bible 
says differently. If a man obtain heaven 
at all, it is by being saved. He is in 
a diseased state ; and it is by the healing 
application of the blood of the Son of 
God, that he is restored from that state. 
The very title applied to Him proves the 
same thing. He is called owr Saviour. 
The deliverance which He effects is call. 
ed our salvation. The men whom He 
doth deliver are called the saved. Doth 


firin and consistent representations of the | not this imply some previous state of dis- 
New Testament—which overlooks the | ease and helplessness? And from the 
existence of the disease altogether, and | frequent and incidental occurrence of this 
therefore feels no alarm, and exerts no| term, may we not gather an additional 


urgency in the business—which, in the, 
face of all the truths and all the severities 
that are uttered in the Word of God, 
leaves the soul to its chance ; or, in other 
words, by neglecting to administer any 
thing specific for the salvation of the soul, 
leaves it to perish. We do not want to 
involve you in controversies; we only | 
ask you to open the New ‘lestament, | 
and attend to the obvious meaning of a| 
word which occurs frequently in its pages 
—we mean the word sared. ‘The term 
surely implies, that the present state 
of the thing to be saved, is a lost and un- 
done state. If a tree be in a healthful 
state from its infancy, you never apply 
the term saved to it, thoug1 you see 











testimony to the truth of what is ¢}se- 
where more expressly revealed to us, 
that we are lost by nature, and that 
to obtain recovery, we must be found in 
Him who came to seek and to save that 
which is lost? He that believeth on the 
Son of God shall be saved ; but he that 
believeth not, the wrath of God abideth 
on him. 

We know that there are some who 
loathe this representation ; but this is just 
another example of the substantial inter- 
ests of the poor being sacrificed to mis- 
management and delusion. It is to be 
hoped that there are many who have 
looked the disease fairly in the face, and 
are ready to reach forward the remedy 


234 


adapted to relieve it. We should have 
no call to attend to the spiritual interests 
of men, if they could safely be left to 
themselves, and to the spontaneous opera- 
tion of those powers with which it is sup- 
posed that nature has endowed them. 
But this is not the state of the case. We 
come into the world with the principles 

of sin and condemnation within us; and, 
in the congenial atmosphere of this 
world’s example, these ripen fast for the 
execution of the sentence. During the 
period of this short but interesting passage 
to another world, the remedy is in the 
gospel held out to all; and the freedom 
and universality of its invitations, while it 
opens assured admission to all who will, 
must aggravate the weight and severity 
of the sentence to those who will not ; 

and upon them the dreadful energy of 
that saying will be accomplished,—* How 
shall they escape if they neglect so great 
a salvation ?” 

We know part of your labours for the 
eternity ofthe poor. We know that you 
have brought the Bible into contact with 
many a soul. And we are sure this is 
suiting the remedy to the disease ; for the 
Bible contains those words which are the 
power of God through faith unto salva- 
tion, to every one who believes them. 

To this established instrument for 
working faith in the heart, add the instru- 
ment of hearing. When you give the 
Bible, accompany the gift with the living 
energy of a human voice—let prayer, and 
advice, and explanation, be brought to act 
pon them: and let the warm and deep- 
lv- felt. earnestness of your hearts, dis- 
charge itself upon theirs in the impressive 
tones of sincerity, and friendship and good 
will, ‘his is going substantially to work. 
It is, if I may use the expression, bring- 
ing the right element to bear upon the 
ense before you; and be assured, that 
every treatment of a convinced and guilty 


BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING THE CASE OF THE POOR. 


ISERM. 


I mind is superficial and ruinous, which 
does not lead it to the Saviour, and bring 
before it His sacrifice and atonement, and 
the influences of that Spirit bestowed 
through His obedience on all who believe 
on Him. 

While in the full vigour of health, we 
may count it enough to take up with 
something short of this. But—striking 
testimony. to evangelical truth! go to the 
awful reality of a “human soul on the eve 
of its departure from the body, and you 
will find that all those vapid sentimentali- 
ties which partake not of the substantial 
doctrine of the New Testament, are good 
for nothing. Hold up your face, my 
brethren, for the truth and simplicity of 
the Bible. Be not ashamed of its phrase 
olgy. It isthe right instrument to han- 
dle in the great work of calling a human 
soul out of darkness into marvellous light. 
Stand firm and secure on the impregnable 
principle, that this is the Word of God, 
and that all taste, and imagination, and sci- 
ence, must give way before its overbear- 
ing authority. Walk in the footsteps of 
your Saviour, in the twofold office of car- 
ing for the disease of the body, and ad- 
ministering to the wants of the soul; and 
though you may fail in the former— 
though the patient may never rise and 
walk, yet, by the blessing of heaven up- 
on your fervent and effectual endeavours, 
the latter object may be gained—the soul 
may be lightened of all its anxieties—the 
whole burden of its diseases may be 
swept away—it may be of good cheer, 
because its sins are forgiven—and the 
right direction may be impressed upon it 
which will carry it forward in progress 
to a happy eternity. Death may not be 
averted, but death may be disarmed. It 
may be stripped of its terrors, and instead 
of a devouring enemy, it may be hailed 
as a messenger of triumph. 


. s 3 


WN PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE, 


- 


285 


’ 


SERMON XXXV. 


On Preaching to the Common People. 


‘And the common people heard him gladly.”—Marxk xii. 37. 


Two discourses might be framed on 
this text—one addressed to the preachers 
of sermons, and another to the hearers 
of sermons. ‘The great topic of the first 
should be the example of our Saviour as 
1 preacher; and the great topic held out 
should be that He preached to the delight 
and acceptance of the common people. 
‘There is no doubt the vanity of popular 
applause ; but there is also the vanity of 
an ambitious eloquence, which. throws 
the common people at a distance from our 
instructions altogether ; which, in laying 
itself out for the admiration of the tasteful 
and enlightened few, locks up the bread 
of life from the multitude ; which destroys 
this essential attribute of the gospel, that 
it is a message of glad tidings to the poor ; 
and wretchedly atones by the wisdom of 
words, for the want of those plain and 
intelligible realities which all may ap- 
een and by which all may be edified. 

ow the great aim of our ministry is to 
win souls; and the soul of a poor man 
consists of precisely the same elements 
with the soul of a rich. They both la- 
bour under the same disease, and they 
both stand in need of the same treatment. 
The physician who administers to their 
bodies brings forward the same applica- 
tion to the same malady; and the phy- 
‘sician who is singly intent on the cure 
of their souls will hold up to both the 
same peace-speaking blood, and the same 
sanctifying Spirit, and will preach to 
both in the same name, because the only 
name given under heaven. whereby men 
can be saved. If he do otherwise, then 
is he preaching himself, instead of giving 
an entire and honest aim to the manage- 
ment of the case that is before him ; and 
does the same provoking injustice to his 
hearers with the physician, who expends 
his visit in playing off the pedantry of 
airs and manners before the eyes of his 
agonizing patient—when he should be 
binding up his wounds, or letting him 


know in plain- language a plain and 
practicable remedy. 

We hear of the orator of fashion, the 
orator of the learned, the orator of the 
mob. A minister of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ should be none of these; and, if 
an orator at all, it should be his distinc- 
tion that he is an orator of the species. 
He should look beyond the accidental 
and temporary varieties of our condition ; 
and recognise In every one who comes 
within his reach, the same affecting 
spectacle of a soul forfeited by sin, and 
that can only be restored by one Lord, 
one faith, one baptism. In the person 
of Nicodemus, it is likely, that both 
wealth and learning stood before the Sa: 
viour; but to His eye, these appear to 
have been paltry and perishable distinc 
tions. He took up this case in precisely 
the same way that He would have done 
the case of one of the common people 
They both laboured under the malignity 
of the same disease; and both, to be 
made meet for the inheritance, had to un 
dergo the same regeneration. ‘The varie 
ties of fortune and accomplishment were 
of no importance at all in His argument. 
They were utterly insignificant as to the 
great purpose which He had in view. 
He reasoned on the great elements of 
flesh and spirit, in which rich and poor 
are alike implicated ; and when he de- 
scribed the mighty transition from the one 
to the other, it was not a flowery path to 
heaven to which he pointed the eye of 
the Jewish ruler, to be trodden only by 
him and his companions in fortune and 
in fine sentiment. It is the one and uni- 
versal path for every son and daughter. 
of Adam, who have all to undergo the 
same death, and to stand before the same 
judgment-seat, and to inherit their undy- 
ing portion, whether of weal or of wo, 
in the same eternity. In the view and 
consideration of such mighty interests as 
thes>, we should give up the partial and 


286 


insignificant distinctions of time and of 
society, between one member of the great 
human family and another. They are 
men and the souls of men that we have 
to deal with ; and let it be our single aim 
to deal with them plainly, impressively, 
and faithfully. 

It is true that ere we completed our 
lesson to the preachers of sermons, we 
behoved to advert to another principle, 
for which we have the sanction of apos- 
tolic example, even that of Paul, who 
was all things to all men, that he might 
gain some. But we must now hasten to 
address the hearers of sermons. It was 
saying more for the common people of 
Judea that they heard the Saviour gladly, 
than for the Scribes and Pharisees who 
heard him with envy, prejudice, and op- 
position; and it is saying more for the 
common people of this country, that they 
hear the doctrine of Christ gladly, than 
for those learned who call that doctrine 
foolishness, for those men of taste who 
call it fanaticism, for those men of this 
world who call it a methodistical reverie, 
for those men of fashion and fine senti- 
ment, who shrink from the peculiarities 
of our faith, with all the disgust of irri- 
tated pride and offended delicacy. What 
the common people of Judea were in ref- 
erence to the rulers of Judea, many of 
the common people of our day are in ref- 
erence to the majority, we fear, of those 
who are to be met with in the walks of 
genteel and cultivated life—the scoffers 
and Sabbath breakers of the day, or the 
men perhaps who take a kind of reli- 
gion along with them, but take it in 
moderation ; who think that to strike the 
high tone of Christ and his apostles 
would be to carry the matter too far; 
who think that a great deal of what is 
said about sin and the sacrifice for sin is 
only meet for vulgar ears; who hear a 
sermon because it is decent to be exem- 
plary ; and who even read a sermon, 
and will read it to the end, if it carry 
them gently along through the rich and 


beauteous track of a polished composi-. 


tion ; but who would be very ready to 
throw it aside if it alarm too much their 
fears, or tell too much with energy upon 
their consciences. Now, we are willing 
to acquit those who are here present of 
all these unchristian peculiarities. We 
are willing to think that both the doc- 


ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE. 


[SERM. 


triue of Scripture and the language of 
Scripture are agreeable to you, and that 
you do not feel as if either the one or the 
other could be carried too far ; that there 
is no false taste, no lofty imagination 
about you, disposing you to resist the ful- 
ness or simplicity of the New Testament ; 
and that the voice of the preacher never 
falls more sweetly upon your ears, than 
when he tells of the great things which 
the Saviour hath done for you. 

Now, it is well that, like the common 
people of our text, you hear the word 
with gladness ; but we want to impress 
it upon you that something more than 
this is indispensable. We are jealous 
over you, and we trust with a godly 
jealousy. We fear that there are man 
who are satisfied with a mere liking for 
the sound of Christian doctrine in their 
ears, while utter strangers to the influ- 
ence of Christiaa doctrine in their hearts: 
who think it enough that they have a 
taste for the faith, while they give no 
proof of obedience to the faith ; who are 
mere hearers of the word, but not doers 
of the word; who feel as if the great use 
of a sermon was to hear it, and to judge 
of it, and if they are pleased, to approve 
of it, and then, with them, the great pur- 
pose for which said sermon was deliv- 
ered is forthwith accomplished. There 
is no more of it. It is like a business 
settled and set by. The minister preached, 
and the people were pleased, and there is 
an end of the affair. They go back 
to their homes and their merchandise : 
and they go just as they came, carrying 
along with them not one trace of a living 
impression on their hearts, their princi 
ples, or their consciences. What they 
have heard may be talked of for some 
days, or remembered for some months ; 
but if in a week or a fortnight after it, the 
question is put, Can you tell of any actual 
or discernible fruit from this said ser- 
mon ? any closer fellowship with the Sa- 
viour in consequence of it? any of the 
effects upon the man which never fail to 
accompany this fellowship? any dymg 
unto sin ? any fervent desires after right- 
eousness? any pressing forward to the 
accomplishments of the new creature in 
Jesus Christ our Lord? any greater de- 
votedness to the business of sanctifica- 
tion? any reformation of thieves or 


| drunkards ? any visible influence on the 


ss 


- XXXV.] 


_ peace and order of families? any break- 
ing down of that worldly spirit which is 
enough of itself to prove the enmity 
of man to his God, though there were no 
outward or declared profligacy in any of 
his actions ? any dissolving of this en- 
mity ?—in a word, any one evidence that 
We can point our finger to, that this faith 
which is so much professed and so much 
talked of, is working by love ?—is mak- 
ing the soul a fit habitation for God by 
His Spirit ?—is bringing down the fulfil- 
ment of the promise upon it, even the 
Holy Ghost given to those who should 
believe? whereby the old man is de- 
stroyed, the body of sin is mortified, all 
former vanities have passed away; and 
the whole man, brought under the domin- 
~ ion of a new and a better principle, rises 
every day in purity and loveliness of 
character, to a meetness for the society 
of angels, for the presence of God, for the 
holy exercises of heaven, for the delights 
of an unfading immortality. 

Apply these questions to a very fond 
and delighted hearer; and how often 
may we find that the thing which gave 
so much pleasure to the itching ears of 
the man, has not had the weight of a 
straw on the man himself! It plays like 
music upon his ear ; but it does not enter 
with the subduing energy of conviction 
into his heart. Follow him through all 
the business of his varied relations at 
home or in society, and you see him to be 
substantially the same man as_ before,— 
with all his old principles and practices 
about him—living his wonted life of in- 
dulgence to himself, and at as great a 
distance as ever from the new habit 
of living to the Saviour who died for 
him. His soul persists in all the un- 
moved obstinacy of its alienation from 
God. It still bends to the earth, and is 
earthly. ‘Time and the interests of time 
retain all their wonted ascendancy over 
it. The Judge of the secrets of the inner 
man sees his heart to be as alive as ever 
to the world, and as dead in affection as 
ever to the things which are above. O, 
he is still the old man, and still persist- 
ing in the deeds of it. The love of the 
world, which is opposite to the love of the 
Father,—the selfishness of diseased na- 
ture, which is opposite to the charity of 
the gospel, are still the supreme and the 
urging principles of his constitution; and 


« 


ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE, 


287 


they tell us that the voice of the preacher 
has had no more effect upon him, than 
the lullaby of a nurse’s song. 

We are forcibly carried to this train of 
reflection by the passage which lies 
before us. ‘The common people heard 
our Saviour gladly ; and what, we ask, 
became of these common people? T'o- 
day the mob of Jerusalem left the hosan- 
nahs of a far-sounding popularity—a few 
days more, and they call out to crucify 
Him. His admirers became His mur- 
derers: and they who at one time heard 
Him gladly, at another are gladly con- 
senting unto His death. In a few years 
Jerusalem was given up to the avenging 
hand of the adversary ; and these wicked 
men, who at one time hung with delight 
upon the preaching of the Saviour, were 
miserably destroyed. ‘The plea that they 
had eaten and drunken in His presence, 
and that He had taught in their streets, 
was of no avail tothem. It did not save 
them from the awful doom of the work- 
ers of iniquity; and they who at one 
time were the admirers and the delighted 
hearers of our Saviour’s doctrine, were at 
another the victims of His wrath. 

What was the principle of this won- 
drous revolution in their sentiments re- 
specting Christ? We shall confine our- 
selves to one summary expression of it. 
The whole explanation of the matter lies 
here. They are willing enough for the 
time being to follow the Saviour ; but 
they would not follow Him upon His 
terms, and when these terms came to be 
understood, they drew back from follow- 
ing Him. He had before said, that “he 
who followeth after me must forsake all ;” 
and these Jewish hearers, when put to 
the trial, would not forsake their national] 
vanity, would not forsake their worldly 
prospects of interest and agerandisement, 
would not forsake their fond anticipations 
of a temporal prince to protect and to 
deliver them. While these agreeable 
prospects were full in their eye, they fol- 
lowed Him; but when these prospects 
vanished, and it came to denying them- 
selves, and taking up their cross, they 
ceased from following Him. They list- 
ened to Him with delight when He told 
them how Christ was greater than Da- 
vid ; but why ? because they looked for- 
ward to the earthly felicities of a still 
more prosperous reign, and a still prouder 


288° ON 
era in their history. It was all, it would 
appear, a matter of selfishness. They 
aspired after a share in the glories of 
their anticipated monarchy, and rejoiced 
in the near view of those privileges 
which they conceived to lie before them: 
but when, instead of privileges, it came 
to persecution,—when, instead of honour, 
it came to humiliation,—when, instead 
of soft and silken security, it came to 
sacrifices, to sufferings and self-denial,— 
they shrunk from it altogether; and, by 
falling away from the contest on earth, 
they forfeited the crown in heaven. 

And there are other examples of the 
same thing in the Bible. It is said of 
Herod that he heard John the Baptist 
gladly, and that he observed him in many 
things. But he did not observe nor fol- 
low him in all things. He did not come 
up to the principle of forsaking all. He 
would not forsake his unhallowed con- 
nexion with his brother’s wife; and when 
put to this proof of his self-denial, he im- 
prisoned the prophet, and beheaded him. 

The rich man who came with the 
question to our Saviour about the way to 
eternal life heard Him with pleasure, so 
long as He did not touch upon his fa- 
vourite affection. There was no self-de- 
nial in keeping himself from those sins to 
which he felt no temptation ; and he list- 
ened with patient satisfaction to the reci- 
tal of those commandments, all of which 
he had been led by his circumstances or 
his natural disposition to keep from his 
youth up. But when the principle of 
“he that followeth after me must forsake 
all,” was applied to his besetting sin, he | 
could not stand it’ He could not find it 
in his heart to slay or to renounce this 
idol He could not give up the service 
of the one master, or make an entire and 
unexpected dedication of himself to the | 
service of the other; and the same man | 
who heard: Him gladly at one part of | 
His instructions, went away from the 
other question exceeding sorrowful, and 
withdrew his footsteps from that follow- ; 
ing of the Lord fully, by which alone we 
can obtain an entrance into the kingdom | 
of God. 

In the parable of the sower, there are 
men spoken of who heard the word with 
joy ; but, as a proof that the joyful hear- 
ing of the word is one thing and the ef- 
fectual receiving of it is another, these 














PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE, y 


[SERM. 


men fell away. Persecution came, and 
by and by they were offended. They at 
first resolved to follow the Saviour; but 
the term of forsaking all was what they 
had not strength of purpose, nor depth of 
principle for acting up to. They gave 
way in the hour of temptation; and, 
rather than forsake their ease or their life 
or their fortune, they gave up all part 
and lot in the inheritance. | : 
But, can there be a more striking ex- 
ample of this than at the preaching of the 
apostles after the resurrection? All Je- 
rusalem was filled with their doctrine, 
and that doctrine was listened to with in- 
dulgence and pleasure. It is true that 
the interested men took the alarm at it; 
but set aside these, and we are told that 
they were in favour with all the people. 
If an apostle preached, he was at no loss 
for a multitude, and an approving mullti- 
tude too, to gather around him, and hang 
upon him with admiration and delight. 
Had there been as many Christians as 
delighted hearers among them, Jerusalem 
would have been the most Christian city 
that ever flourished on the face of the 
earth. It looked so fair and so promis- 
ing, when every street poured forth its — 
multitudes, and they all ran together to 
the apostles, glorifying God for all which 
they heard and saw. Some were added 
to the church of such as should be saved. 
But they were a mere handful to the pop- 
ulation of the devoted city. They were 
a mere gleaning among that number who 
kept in awe the high-priest and the coun- 
cil of Jerusalem, and restrained their vio- 
lence against the first ministers of the 
New Testament. Yes, they were fa- 
vourite ministers at that time, men of vast 
acceptance and popularity; and, if to 
hear the word gladly with the ear were 
the same thing as to receive the influence 
of that word into the heart, the vengeance 
of a rejected Saviour might have been 
averted from Jerusalem. But, alas! the 
hearers of that time must have been like 
many of the hearers of the present day. 
They heard, and they were pleased; but 
they would not forsake all to follow. 
They were afraid of excommunication, 
and they clung by their synagogues. 
They would not forsake the approbation 
of their priests, and the protection of their 
rulers. They clung by the superstitions, 
by the iniquities, by the bigotries of Je- 


- 


XXXv.] 


tusalem ; and with Jerusalem they per- 
ished. 

What does all this teach us? Let us 
come to the application. The gospel 
under which we sit has two great arti- 
cles. By the one, we are invited to 
faith ; by the other, we are called to re- 
pentance. By the one, we are offered 
the remission of our sins; by the other, 
we are called upon for the renunciation 
of our sins. By the one, we are told of 
a salvation, of which, if we accept, we 
shall be reconciled and taken into full ac- 
ceptance with God. By the other, we 
- are told of a salvation, of which, if we ac- 
cept, we shall be regenerated by the ope- 
ration of the Spirit of God. By the one, 
we are graciously assured that, if we turn 
to Christ as into a stronghold, we shall 
be safe; and the storm of the Divine 
wrath will utterly pass us by. By the 
other, we are solemnly warned that, in 
* turning to Christ, we must turn from our 
iniquities—else if the Judge find us in 
these on the great day of reckoning, the 
fury both of a violated law and an insulted 
gospel will be let loose upon us, and we 
borne off as by a whirlwind to the hor- 
rors of an undone eternity. Now, the 
whole secret of such an exhibition as was 
made by the common people at Jerusa- 
lem, and as may still be realized by the 
people of the present day, is, that they 
like the one article, they dislike the other, 
—glad enough to take all that God offers, 
but not so glad to perform all that God 
requires,—giving their delighted consent 
to the one, refusing it to the other,—and 
thus running with delight after those men 


of popularity and acceptance who tell’ 
them of the faith of the New Testament, 
but falling away with disaffection and dis- 


taste when told of the repentance of the 
New ‘Testament. 
ers of the word; but our question is, are 
they the obedient doers of it? O, it is 


pleasant to be told of heaven ; and, amidst | 


the agitations of this earthly wilderness, 


to have the eye carried forward to that. 


place of quietness. 

But are you willing to take, or rather 
are you actually taking the prescribed 
road to heaven—though that road should 
lead you through manifold trials and 
‘manifold tribulations ?—It is soothing to 
listen to the preacher’s voice, 


tells you to rest in the sufficiency of the of thy messengers.” 
| 37 ; 


ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE, | 


They are joyful hear-, 


289 


Saviour. Are you building any thing 
upon this foundation? If you rest on 
the sufficiency of Christ, you will receive 
of that sufficiency. He will make His 
grace sufficient for you ; and, perfecting 
His strength in your weakness, He will 
make you run with delight in the way of 
new obedience.—It is delightful to be 
told of the privileges of the Christian 
faith. Are you proving yourselves to be 
in the faith? It is not a name, but a 
principle. It is not a thing to be merely 
talked of. It is like the kingdom of 
heaven to which it carries you—not in 
word, but in power ; and then only does 
it work with power, when it works by 
love and keeps the commandments.—It 
is indeed a welcome sound upon a sin- 
ner’s ear that he is justified by the right- 
eousness of Christ. O, it is a faithful 
saying ; and the only plea upon which 
we have access with confidence to God. 
But he who is justified is also sanctified, 
is another faithful saying; and let us 
come to close questioning with you—are 
you, or are you not, in the strength of 
God’s promised Spirit, making the busi- 
ness of your sanctification a daily and 
hourly and ever-doing business ?—You 
like to follow the minister who preaches 
Christ; and, in going after him, you 
have forsaken all the legalists, all the 
mere men of morality, all the self-suffi- 
cient expounders of that righteousness 
which is by the law. But what we ask 
is—do you follow Christ, and that with 
an entire devotedness to Him and to Him 
only? And, in following after Him, do 
you forsake all? In turning to Him, do 
you turn from your iniquities? In yield- 
ing yourselves up unto His service, do 
you renounce the service of sin and of 
‘the world ?—for, if not, you are like the 
common people of Jerusalem, and you 
will share in the judgment that came ovei 
them. You may hear gladly ; but what 
does it avail, if you do not, follow faith- 
‘fully? Jerusalem which they lived in 
was destroyed ; and they were destroyed 
along with it. The world which you 
live in will be destroyed also; and when 
‘the Judge cometh, the plea which many 
‘of the lovers of orthodoxy may h& up, 
will not serve them—“ Lord, we have 
eaten and drunken of thy sacraments, 


| 








when he!and pleasant to our souls was the voice 


But then will 4 


290 ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE. [SERK. 


answer to them, “I never knew you;| looks to; and well does He see its bent 
depart from me all yethat work iniquity.” | and its tendency, through all the ambigui- 
But, in sounding the alarm, it should} ties by which you deceive and satisfy 
be our care that it reach far enough;|} your own unfaithful conscience. He 
and we apprehend of this denunciation | takes knowledge of it when you are too 
that we have now uttered against the | busy with your own way and your own 
children of iniquity—that many are the} counsel to take knowledge of it your- 
consciences, even of those now present, | selves. He follows it through the secrecy 
who may not be rightly or fully affected | of all its hidden movements; nor does 
by it When we speak of those who} it escape His notice when it disowns 
work iniquity, to the fair and passable | Him, and goes in quest of other Gods— 
men of society, they never once think of | when it casts Him off and worships idols 
including themselves in this description ; | when it renounces the true God, and 
but their thoughts go abroad to thieves, | makes a God of wealth, a God of vanity, 
and drunkards, and defrauders; and,|a God of pleasure, and as many more 
applying to them the declaration of Scrip- | Gods as there are allurements from Him-. 
ture, that “they who do such things shall | self in this deceitful world. Not a 
not inherit the kingdom of God,’ they | worker of iniquity, because you do not 
lull their own spirits into a deep slumber. | steal! Why, you rob God of the pro- 
But we fall short of our aim, if we do| perty which belongs to Him, of His own 
not awaken them too out of this fatal | rightful property in the heaits and affec- 
security; if we do not break up this | tions of His ownchildren. Nota worker 
prevalent delusion ; if we do not reach | of iniquity, because, in the form or the 
conviction into other hearts than those of | outward matter of it, you break not the 
gross and notorious offenders. We look | sixth or the eighth commandment? Why, 
not for theft or drunkenness among men | you live in habitual violation of the first 
of honour and decency and respect in| and greatest commandment, which is, 
their neighbourhood—yet would we open | “ love the Lord thy God with all thy 
their eyes too to their state of spiritual | soul, and strength, and mind.” Not a 
nakedness, and tell them how it is that} worker of iniquity, because you do 
even they are workers of iniquity. To| nothing which the world can point its 
them’ belongs that most damning of all| finger to? Because you escape the fin- 
iniquity, the iniquity of a heart alienated | ger of the world, does it follow that you 
from God. It is the heart wherewith | can escape the eye of God? He sees 
Fie has principally to do; and “ give me | you to be a rebel against Himself; and, 
thy heart” is the first and greatest of His | with that heart of yours turned to its own 
commandments. The evil things which | vanities, with neither the enjoyment of 
come out of it may be more or less visi-| God for its object, nor the love of God 
ble to the eye of the world ; but He does | for its principle; be assured that it is 
not need to look to the stream, for His | deceitful above all things, and desperately 
penetrating eye reaches to the fountain-| wicked, and is fully set in you to do that 
head. The world may not see you to be} which is evil. 
a thief or a drunkard ; but He sees you,; The maxim. then, of forsaking all to 
and takes note of you as an enemy of | follow after Christ, reaches a great deal 
His. He sees in that heart of yours, the | farther than to the notoriously profligate. 
hourly, and the habitual guilt of spiritual | It must go round among all the sons and 
idolatry. He sees the whole current of | daughters of Adam. It is not confined 
its affections and wishes to be away from | to the visible doings of the hand, but car- 
Himself, and fully directed to the vani-| ries its authority over the whole man, 
ties and interests of the world. He sees | and claims more especially an absolute 
the praise of men more sought after than | dominion among the affections and wish- 
4s His praise; and, with the outside of | es and tastes of the inner man. He whe 
plausibility which you maintain before} hears gladly to-day, and lies or steals or 
the eye of your fellows, He, the discerner | defrauds to-morrow, is not the only man. 
of your thoughts and intents, may see|that we are aiming at. He who hears 
how other things are more loved and fol-| gladly to-cay, and to-morrow gives his 
lowed than God. It is the heart that He | soul to any of the perishable idols of time, 


_XXxxv-] ‘ 
instead of devoting it with all its longings 
and energies to God, is fully included in 
the lesson which we are now giving to 
you. Delighted with the sermon, we 
grant you, but not one inch of progress 
made toward the clean heart and the 
right spirit. Lulled, Sabbath after Sab- 
bath, as if by the sound of a pleasant song, 
or-of one who can play well upon an in- 
strument—and yet the old man persisting 
in all the unsubdued obstinacy of his 
deep and inborn principles. Rejoicing 
once a-week in the house of God, as if it 
were the gate of heaven—yet the whole 
week long, giving his entire heart to the 
world, and resting all his security upon 
the world’s wealth, and the world’s enjoy- 
ments. Running after gospel ministers, 
and sitting in all the complacency of ap- 
probation under them—and yet an utter 
stranger to*the devotedness, to the spirit- 
uality, to the close walk, and the godly 
spirit of the altogether-Christian. ‘OQ my 
brethren, it bids so flattering to hear the 
city bells, and to see every house pouring 
forth its family of worshippers—to look 
upon the avenue which leads to the house 
of prayer, and see it all in a glow with 
the crowd and bustle of passengers—to 
enter the church, and see every eye fas- 
tened attentively on the man of God, as 
he tells of the high matters of salvation, 
and presses home the preparations of eter- 
nity upon an arrested audience. O, if 
the charmed ear were a true and unfail- 
ing index to the subdued heart, the busi- 
ness of the minister would go on so pros- 
perously! Butthere is a power ef resist- 
ance within that is above his exertions 
and beyond them—there is a spirit work- 
ing in the children of disobedience which 
no power of human eloquence can lay— 
there is an obstinate alienation from God, 
which God alone can subdue ; and, unless 
He make a willing people in the day of 
His power, the influence of the preacher’s 
lesson will die away with the music of 
his voice—the old man will be carried 
out as vigorous and entire as he was car- 
ried in—the word spoken may play upon 
the fancy, but it will not reach the deeply- 
seated corruption which lies in the affec- 
tions and the will—the seriousness which 
sits so visible on every countenance, will 
vanish into nothing in half an hour—the 
- men of the world, and the things of the 
world, will engross and occupy the room 


ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE. 


, 


29) 


that is now taken up with something like 
Christianity—and all will be dissipated 
into a thing of nought, when you go to 
your shops and your forms and your fa- 
milies and your market-places. 


But we must now draw to aclose, and 
will lay before you a few things in the 
way of practical application. 


I. First, then, we have no quarrel with 
you because you are of the number of 
those who hear gladly.. This is so far 
well. It is one of the deadliest symptoms 
of those who perish, that to them the 
preaching of the cross is foolishness. If 
such be your indifference or aversion to 
the word of God, if such be your con- 
tempt for the opportunities of hearing it— 
that, now when they are brought week 
after week within your reach, you wil} 
nevertheless turn in distaste and dissatis- 
faction away—if you prefer a Sabbath on 
the way-side, or a Sabbath in the fields, 
or a Sabbath in sordid indolence and dis- 
sipation at home, to a Sabbath in the 
solemn assembly of worshippers—T'hen 
will it sorely aggravate your condemna- 
tion in the great day of account, that you 
refused to listen to the word when the 
word was. brought nigh unto you—that, 
rather than hear the word by which you 
and your families might have been saved, 
you chose to perish for lack of knowledge, 
even that knowledge of God and of Jesus 
Christ which is life everlasting—that. 
when the ministers of the Most High 
lifted their beseeching voice, you regard- 
ed them not—that you preferred taking 
your own pleasure now, reckless of the 
awful day of account and of punishment 
that is to come afterwards, even that day 
when the Judge from heaven shall ap- 
pear in flaming fire, “to take vengeance 
on those who know not God and who 
obey not the gospel of his Son Jesus 
Christ, when they shall be punished with 
everlasting destruction from the presence 
of the Lord and from the glory of his 
power.” Better than this surety is it that 
you should hear the word gladly, and 
that you should rejoice when friends and 
companions say, “ Let us go up to the 
house of God.” We have no quarrel, 
then, we repeat, with your being of the 
number of those who are the glad hear- 
ers of the word. Are there any here 


292 


present who recollect the day when the 
language of the gospel was offensive to 
them, but who now listen to it with eager- 
ness and delight? A very promising 
symptom most assuredly ; and it may evi- 
tence the beginning of a good work 
which God may carry forward and bring 
to perfection. 

iI. But secondly, though your hear- 
ing gladly be a promising symptom, it is 
not an infallible one. The common 
people of Jerusalem heard gladly ; and 
we need not repeat the awful disaster 
and ruin which, in the course of a few 
years, overtook the families of that com- 
mon people—so that their old and their 
middle-aged, and their little ones, were 
miserably destroyed. Herod heard glad- 
ly. The men who fell away in the 
parable of the sower heard gladly, and 
you may hear gladly yet fall short of the 
kingdom: of God. “ Be not high mind- 
ed but fear.” “Let him that thinketh 
he standeth take heed lest he fall”’ The 
apostle tells how far a man might pro- 
ceed in the characteristics and evidences 
of a seeming Christianity, and yet fallirre- 
coverably away. One of these character- 
istics is a taste for the good word of God ; 
but this, so far from being of any avail 
to the presumptuous backslider serves 
the more to fix and to aggravate his 


doom—the doom of a perdition from | 


which there is no possibility of a recall, 
it being impossible, he tells us, “to re- 
new them again unto repentance.” 
fSeep fast then what you have gotten, 
and strengthen the things which remain 
and are ready to die. 

Iit. But though to hear gladly be not 
an infallible symptom, yet to hear the 
whole truth gladly is a much more pro- 
ising symptom than only to hear part 
of the truth gladly. We fear that it is 
this partial liking for the word which 
forms the whole amount of their affec- 
tion for it, with the great majority of pro- 
fessing Christians. They like one part; 
but they do not like another. Some like 
to hear of the privileges of the gospel ; 
but they do not like to hear of the pre- 
cepts of the gospel, and that the soul in 
whom Christ is formed the hope of 
glory, will purify itself even as Christ is 
pure. This partial liking, so far from a 
promising symptom, we count to be a 

“very dangerous one. It is dividing 


¥ 


ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE. 


! 





[SERM 


Christ. It is putting asunder the things. 
which God hath joined. It is giving the” 
lie to his testimony; and making our 
own taste and our own inclination take 
the precedency of God’s word and of 
God’s way. Make it a high point of © 
duty to listen with equal reverence and 
satisfaction to all God’s communications. 
Do you listen with delight to the minis- 
ter, when he tells you to follow after 
Christ? Listen with equal delight to 
the minister, when he tells you that in 
following after Christ you must forsake 
all. If this truth offend you merely 
when it is spoken, how much more will 
it offend you when you have a call for 
its being acted on ?—and thus will you 
fall precisely under that description of 
hearers, who hear with joy, but when 
temptation comes, by and by they are of- 
fended. Do you listen with delight to a 
sermon upon the privileges of faith, and 
how that all who have it shall inherit 
the kingdom? Listen with equal de- 
light toa sermon on the properties and 
influences of faith ; and when it tells you 
how it is a faith which worketh, work- 
ing by love, purifying the heart, over- 
coming the world. Do you listen with 
delight to a sermon on the freeness of. 
grace; and when it tells you how it is 
offered to all, and that all who will may 
take of it without money and without 
price? Listen, with equal delight toa 
sermon on the power and efficacy of 
grace—telling how it frees all who are 
under it from the dominion of sin, how 
it worketh mightily in the souls of be- 
lievers, how it raises them to newness 
of life, and strengthens them for all the 
duties and performances of the new crea- 
ture—not only teaching all men, but 
enabling all men who lay hold of it, to 
deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and 
to live soberly, righteously, and godly in 
the present evil world. It looks as if it 
were to guard us against this partial lik- 
ing for the word of God, that these two 
great articles of Christianity, what man 
receives from God and what God re- 
quires of man, under the dispensation of 
the gospel,—that both of these are often 
placed together, side by side, within the 
enclosure of one and the same verse ; so 
as both to be taken up at one glance of 
the eye by him who reads the verse, or 
expressed at one breath by him who ut 


XXXV.] 


ters it. The call of our Saviour at the 
commencement of Mark is, “ Repent 
and believe the gospel.” ‘The apostolic 
description of the great subjects of 
preaching is “repentance toward God 
and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” 
The office of the ascended Saviour is to 
“give repentance and the remission of 
ss” The privileges of the believer 
are that to him “there is no condemna- 
tion ;’ and he walketh not after the flesh 
but after the Spirit”? As many as re- 
ceive Christ, we are told, receive along 
with him “power to walk as God’s 
children.” ‘l'hey who are in Christ we 
are again told are “new creatures.” And 
_ lastly do we read of God being faithful 
and just—not only “to forgive our sins 
but to cleanse us from all our unrigh- 
teousness. Such passages are innumer- 
able. Let us have our eye alike open 
upon them all. Let us proceed upon 
them all—combining delight in the secu- 
rities of the Christian faith, with dili- 
gence in the Christian practice. 

IV.* But lastly, if it do not follow that 
because a man isa delighted hearer of 
the word, he is therefore an obedient doer 
of it, how is he to become one? What 
is there which can bring relief to this 
melancholy helplessness? How wretch- 
ed to think that the impression, so quick 
and lively in the house of God, should be 
so easily put to flight out of it; and 
should fall away into forgetfulness, when 
brought into actual collision with the in- 
fluences of the world. The man’s 
warmth and his elevation, and his swell- 
ing purposes of better things, look so 
promising ; but bring him to the trial, 
and it all turns out like the vapouring of 
acoward. The. one shows himself in 
the day of battle—the other in the day of 
temptation, He goes to his family after 
a sermon that he has heard, and becomes 
peevish, though one fruit of the Spirit be 
gentleness—he goes to an entertainment 
and becomes luxurious, though one fruit 
of the Spirit be temperance—he goes to 
a company and becomes censorious, 
though one fruit of the Spirit be the love 
that worketh no ill. In a word, he goes 
to any one scene of the world; and he 
loses all sense and feeling of the ever- 
_ present God—though the solemn require- 
ment under which he lives is to do all 
things to His glory. Are we not speak- 


ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE. 


’ 


293 


ing to your own experience ; and may 
not the personal remembrance of every 
one of you spare us the task of any fur- 
ther argument, when we assert that the 
glow of a warm and affecting impression 
is one thing, and the sturdiness of an en- 
during principle is another ? 

We again then recur to the question, 
how shall we give the property of endu- 
rance to that which in time past has been 
so perishable and so momentary? The 
strength of your own natural purposes, 
it would appear, cannot do it. The 
power of argument cannot do it. The 
tongue of the minister, though he spake 
with the eloquence of an angel, cannot 
do it; and unless some power above and 
beyond all these be made to rest on you, 
he may speak to the delight of a crowded 
assembly, and it will be of no more avail 
than if he lifted up his voice in the wil- 
derness. But you have met together in 
the name of one who has promised to be 
in the midst of you; and He can do it. 
He alone can deposit in your hearts that 
seed which remaineth ; and come down 
upon you with an unction from the Hol 
One never to be obliterated. What He 
puts in you will abide in you; and it 
will enable you to stand amid the con- 
flicts of the world, and the rudest shock 
of its temptations. Ifthe Spirit of Christ 
be in you, then greater will be He that is 
in you than he that is in the world ; and 
let your experience of the past, and the 
feeling of your former helplessness, shut 
you up into the faith of Him. If you 
commit yourself in faith to Him, He will 
not fail you. His promises are yea and 
amen ; and if they are not realized upon 
you, it is because you do not believe in 
them, because you do not depend on 
them, because you do not wait and pray 
for the performance of them. 

Mark here, my brethren, the efficacy 
and the indispensableness of prayer. It 
is the link which cements and binds to- 
gether the sermon of the minister, with 
its living and practical effect on the con- 
sciences and conduct of the people. Of 
such essential importance is it, that the 
apostles made as great account of prayer, 
as they did of the ministry of the word ; 
and so they gave themselves wholly to 
both. But for prayer, all our anticipa- 
tions of a great Christian blessing in the 
midst of this people and from the services 


294 ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE. |SERM. 


of this Church will come to mockery. | that you fully and precisely understood 
It is right that these means should be|the object of it. The place of worship 
provided ; but the whole enterprise will | in which we are now assembled for the 
be a miserable abortion, if we devolve | first time, is not adequately described to 
not the work upon God—so as both to| you, by its being merely told, that, like 
seek feom Him the blessing, and give to | other and ordinary chapels heretofore, it 
Him all the glory of it. More especially, | forms an addition to the means of Chris 
if at all in earnest about your personal | tian instruction in or about Edinburgh. 
Christianity, I would have you to under- ; It has a far more special destination than 
stand—that, without prayer, prompted by | this; and such as we should like to see 
a sense of your own helplessness, and a| extended over town and country, till 
confidence in the sufficiency of Christ | there was not only Sabbath-room enough 
Jesus as your strength and your sanctifier, | but week-day service enough for one an 
it will be impossible to real:ze it. The|all of the families of our land. It isa * 
way is to make an hourly and habitu:.]| church then erected, mainly and_pri- 
commitment of yourself to Him; and/ marily, for the accommodation of the 
He will keep in hourly and habitual | people who reside within the limits of 
safety that which is so committed. He | the district in which it is placed. ‘They 
hath obtained for you a great blessing, | have the choice of its seats in the first in- 
and to which all of you are most wel-| stance; and our only regret is, that till 
come, in having puichssed forgiveness | government do its duty, we shall not be 
for you; but, in the fulness of His treas- | able to afford them at rents so low, as to 
ury, there is still another blessing in|admit of their being taken in greater 
store for all who believe on Him. He] numbers, and, if possible, in household 
came to bless every one of you by pews, not only for the men and women, 


_—_—. 


ing you f.om your iniquities. Heep] but even for the children of the working 
closely and constantly by Him in faith; | classes—that the people might come, not 
and he will keep closely and constantly | merely by individuals, but in whole 
by you with the power of His grace— | fimilies to the house of God; and the 
giving not only mercy to pardon, but} spectacle be again realized in towns, 
grace to help in every time of need. He} which might still be witnessed in country 
will carry you in safety through the| parishes, where high and low meet to- 
concerns and companies of the world.| gether, and the congregation, though 
He overcame the world himself; and | sprinkled over with a few of rank and 
He will enable you to forsake all, and to | of opulence, is chiefly made up of our 
overcome it also. Abide in Him, and|men of handicraft and of hard labour. 
the promise is that He will abide in you. | There is none we think of correct moral 
Separate from Him, you become a with- | taste, and whose heart is in its right place, 
ered branch without fruit and without | that will not rejoice in such a spectacle, as 
loveliness. But, abiding in Him, you] far more pleasing in itself, and, if only 
are formed into His image—you rise in | universal in our churches, far more indi- 
the likeness of His pure and perfect ex- | cative of a healthful state of the commu- 
am ple—you will at all times hear gladly, | nity, than the wretched system of the 
but not after the example of the common | present day, when the gospel is literally 
people of Judea. Yours will be a sin-|sold to the highest bidders among the 
cere thirst after the milk of His word, | rich, and not preached to the poor. And 
not that you may be pleased with the|the melancholy consequence is, the irre- 
taste of it, but that you may grow| ligion, the ignorance, the reckless habits, 
thereby—and thus will you give evidence | and prostrate morality of a neglected 
both to God and man of your interest in | population—of a population at the same 
the Saviour, by being not merely the | time sunk both in comfort and character, 
hearers of the word but the doers also. | only because they are neglected; and 
who would nobly repay, as our expe-— 
rience in this place abundantly testifies, 
any justice that was done, or any atten- 
tions that were rendered to them ‘The 
process of our operations is an exceed- 











We now proceed to the collection of 
the funds for this our new undertaking ; 
and, in order to engage your affections 
the more to our cause, we should like 


XXXV.] 


ingly simple one. Instead of leaving 
this church to fill as it may from all parts 
of the town, we first hold out the seats 
that we have to dispose of, at such prices 
as we can afford to its own parish fami- 
lies—which families, at the same time, 
have previously opened their doors, and 
given their welcome to those ministerial 
yet household services, those visits of 
Christian charity to the sick and the dy- 
ing, those labours for the best because 
the spiritual interests of themselves and 
their little ones, wherewith they are in- 
cessantly plied through the week; and, 
in consequence of which, it is our fond 
expectation and desire, that the attention 
of the house-going minister will be fol- 
lowed by the attendance of a church-go- 
ing people. We do hope that this plain 
statement will recommend itself to your 
Hberality ; and that we shall be helped 
by you to clear away the debt, and to 
overcome the difficulties which still at- 
tach to our undertaking. The original 
subscribers look for no return, no remu- 
neration tothemselves. Theirs has been 
an unreserved gift ; and not one farthing 
of repayment, whether in principal or in 
interest, has ever been looked for by any 
of them. By the generosity of their in- 
dividual offerings, the main expense of 
the erection has been defrayed ; and, for 
the liquidation of the remaining expense 
we now cast ourselves on the collective 
offerings of those who desire to see a 
good cause placed on the footing of a 
permanent and secure establishment, and 
freed from all the -embarrassments of a 
still unfinished and unpaid-for operation. 
Our fond wish for Edinburgh and for its 
environs is—that, district after district, 
new churches may arise and old ones be 
thrown open to their own parish families, 
till not one house remains which has not 
within its walls some stated worshipper 
in one or other of our Christian assem- 
blies; and not one individual can be 

omted to, however humble and un- 
fata: who has not some man of God 
for his personal acquaintance, some 
Christian minister for his counsellor and 
friend. 








The afternoon service is postponed till 
evening ; and the reason of this postpone- 
ment may be well called a very singular 


ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE. 


ed 


295 


at all counting, when we had resolved to 
open our church this day—an annular 
eclipse of the sun, and where the greatest 
amount of darkness would happen in the 
very middle of the exercise, or precisely 
at three o’clock ; and so we fear as both 
to incommode the minister, and to disturb 
the congregation. We are unwilling to 
let this extraordinary event pass without 
some religious improvement; and what 
work or manifestation of Nature’s God, 
who at the same time is the God of Christ- 
lanity—sitting on a throne of grace as 
well as on the throne of creation and 
providence—the God who, in the lan- 
guage of the apostle’s prayer in the book 
of Acts, ‘‘ made heaven and earth and sea 
and all that is therein,’’—what exhibition 
of this wonder-working God is not capa- 
ble of being turned to the account of prac- 
tical godliness? We should like you 
then to recognise it as one and the same 
lesson—that He who has established so 
much certainty in Nature, most true to 
Himself, hath established the like certain- 
ty in Revelation ; that the one economy 
will be characterized by the same un- 
changeableness as the other—insomuch 
that, if we meet with so much constancy, 
so much to be relied upon in the works 
of God, there is at least as great.a con- 
stancy and as much to be firmly and fully 
relied upon in the word of God. The 
covenant of the rainbow which marks the 
dispersion of the clouds, and clearing up 
of the weather, is not more sure, than that 
covenant of grace which forms the great 
charter of a Christian’s hope, and of 
which we are told in the Bible that it is 
ordered in all things and sure. The 
eclipse of this day is one of the most rare 
and marvellous description, not what is 
termed a partial and not a total but an an- 
nular eclipse, in which the moon passes 
not over the edge, but centrally or almost 
centrally over the sun’s disk—and so that, 
instead of covering that disk altogether 
and making the eclipse a total one, it 
leaves, and for four minutes only, a little 
ring of the solar orb peering out on all 
sides of the moon’s darkened hemisphere 
—causing a fine and beauteous circle of 
light, all that is left for the brief space of 
four minutes to lighten up our world, 
The marvellous thing is, that all this 
should be known to men beforehand ; that 


one, on which certainly we were not | astronomers can tell the whole that is to 


¢ 


296 


happen with such unfailing accuracy ; 
that within a second of time they can an- 
nounce when it is that the darkness will 
make its first entrance on the south-west 
edge of the sun, and when it is to a pre- 
cise second that the last remainder of 
darkness will pass away from the north- 
east edge of it—and when and how long 
it is that the golden circuit will continue, 
of one delicate and unbroken line re-en- 
tering upon itself, and so completing for 
a few evanescent minutes an entire orb of 
Juminousness in the heavens. It may 
well be marvelled at—the certainty of the 
science of man, or of him who is but the 
observer of the phenomenon. But re- 
member well, that in order to this, there 
must be a previous certainty—the un- 
changeable certainty of Him who is the 
Creator of the phenomenon ; and the un- 
changeableness of whose ordinances in 
the heavens, is the sure token and de- 
monstration of the like unchangeableness 
of His purposes in the word. The cal- 
endar of prophecy is in every way as 
sure, as the almanac whether of history 
or of nature ; and, in the unerring fulfil- 
ments of both, we may read alike the im- 
mutability and the faithfulness of God ; of 
Him who hath said it, and shall He not 
do it ?—-and with whom is no variable- 
ness, nor shadow of turning. 

Think not, my brethren, that we en- 
certain you with any fancy of our own. 
In Psalm cxix. 89, we are told of God’s 
constancy in the heavens, being the sure 
guarantee of a like constancy in the word. 
Nay, my brethren, the one has a more 
unviolable constancy than the other—for 
heaven and earth shall pass away ; but 
the word of God endureth for ever, and 
shall not pass away. Whatan emphasis 
then does it give to the lesson we have 
been labouring to urge, of attention, sol- 
emn and steadfast attention to that word 
—what firm, what unfaltermg depend- 
ence should it establish in the mind of the 
believer, when he rests on the word 
af promise as an anchor of the soul both 


ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE, 


[SERM. 


sure and steadfast—and with what a fear- 
ful looking for and certainty of the com- 
ing judgment should it fill the heart 
of the impenitent, when he thinks of the 
threatenings of God being as sure as His 
promises ; of the laws of the divine gov- 
ernment being in every way as certain of 
fulfilment, as the laws of nature which is 
the divine workmanship; and more es- 
pecially, when he thinks of the law 
of revelation and the law of conscience 
with all the power and terror of their de- 
nunciations, against the children of iniqui- 
ty—when he thinks of these in connexion 
with the saying of the Saviour, that 
‘“ Heaven and earth shall pass away but 
not one jot or one tittle of the law shall 
fail.” When you look then to the spec- 
tacle of this day, lift up your heads 
ye faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus 
Christ and rejoice—for as sure or surer 
than the prediction of which you are now 
to witness the accomplishment, is the 
glorious prediction of Holy Writ that the 
day of your restoration draweth nigh: 
And O take warning ye careless and 
stout-hearted who are far from righteous- 
ness—for as sure or surer than that on 
this day the sun in the firmament will be 
shrouded in blackness, is the announce- 
ment of the apostle Peter who tells us of 
another day “ when the heavens shall 
pass away with a great noise, and the el- 
ements shall melt with fervent heat, the 
earth also, and the works that are therein, 
shall be burnt up. Seeing then that all 
these things shall be dissolved, what 
manner of persons ought ye to be in all 
holy conversation and godliness ; looking 
for and hastening unto the coming of the 
day of God, wherein the heavens, being 
on fire, shall be dissolved, and the ele 
ments shall melt with fervent heat ?” 
May you all be enabled to say with well 
grounded confidence in the language of 
the next verse, “ Nevertheless we accord 
ing to His promise, look for new heavens 
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth right- 
eousness.” 


. 


XXXVIT SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING TO RECEIVING, 29” 


SERMON XXXVI-* 


On the Superior Blessedness of the Giver to that of the Receiver. 


“} have showed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak; and to re= 
member the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.” 
Acris xx. 35, 


Joun, at the end of his gospel, spoke 
of the multitude of other things which Je- 
sus did, and which he could not find room 
for in the compass of His short history. 
Now, what is true of the doings of our 
Saviour, I hold to be equally true of the 
sayings of our Saviour. ‘There are ma- 
ny thousands of these sayings not record- 
ed. The four gospels were written with- 
in some years after His death, and though 
I have no doubt of the promise being ac- 
complished upon the apostles, that the 
Spirit would bring all things to their re- 
membrance, in virtue of which promise, 
we have all things told of Jesus necessa- 
ty for our guidance here, and our salva- 
tion hereafter—yet I have as little doubt, 
when I think of the length and frequency 
of His conversations with the people 
around Him, that many, and very many 
of the gracious words which fell from 
His mouth, have not been transmitted to 
us in any written history whatever. They 
may have been kept alive by tradition for 
a few years. ‘They may have been 
handed from one-to another by mere oral 
communication. ‘There is no doubt that 
they served every purpose for which they 
were uttered—but, in the lapse of one or 
two generations, they ceased to be talked 
of, and have now vanished from all earth- 
ly remembrance. 

But there is one, and only one, of these 
sayings, which, though not recorded in 
any of the gospels, has escaped the fate 
of all the rest. In the course of its circu- 
lation among the disciples of that period, 
it reached the apostle Paul, and he has 
thought fit to preserve it. It seems to 


have obtained a general currency among 
Christians ; for he speaks of it to the el- 
ders of Ephesus, as if they had heard of 
it before. He quotes it as a saying known 
to them as well as to himself. We have 
no doubt that it was held in reverence, 
and referred to, and might have been talk- 
ed of for many years, in the churches. 
But it would at length have sunk into for- 
getfulness, with the crowd of other unre- 
corded sayings, had not Paul caught hold 
of it in its progress to oblivion ; and, by 
placing it within the confines of written 
history, he has made it imperishable. It 
has got within the four corners of that 
book, of which it is said, “ If any man take 
away from the words of it he shall be ac- 
cursed.” He was the Son of God who 
uttered it; and it is striking enough, that, 
when unnoticed and unrecorded by all 
the evangelists, the apostle of the Gen- 
tiles, born out of due time, was the instru- 
ment of transmitting it to posterity. Pre- 
cious memorial! ‘There was no chance 
of its ever being lost to the Christian 
church, for all Scripture is given by in- 
spiration of God; and without it the vo- 
lume of inspiration would not have been 
completed. But surely the very circum- 
stances of its being overlooked by the 
professed historians of our Saviour—of 
its being left for a time to fluctuate among 
all the chances, and all the uncertainties 
of verbal communications—of its being 
selected by the revered apostle of the 
Geatiles, from among the crowd of simi- 
lar sayings which were suffered to per- 
ish for ever from the memory of the 
world—of his putting his hand upon it, 


ee a 











* This sermon was preached first for a Female Society in Dunfermline, in 1814; then for an 
Orphan Hospital; and lastly, for the society of The Sons of the Clergy, in Glasgow, in April, 1815. 

The three different conclusions of this sermon, mark the three different occasions on which it 
was preached; and also the sentiments of the author, in regard to the distinct objects which he was 
called upon to advocate. He may remark, that, after the experience of twenty-four years, he 
should feel disinclined to plead for the first of these objects, and even be doubtful in regard to 
the second—which he thinks occupies a mid-way or ambiguous place between the cases which 
might, and those which ought not to be provided for by public institutions. 


38 


298 


and arresting its march to that forgetful- 
ness to which it was so fast hastening—— 
All these have surely the effect of endear- 
ing it the more to our hearts, and should 
lead the thoughtful Christian to look up- 
on the words of my text, with a more ten- 
der and affecting veneration. 

In discoursing from these words, I 
shall first direct your attention to those 
Christians who occupy such a condition 
of life that they may give; and, secondly, 
to those Christians who occupy such a 
condition of life that they must. receive. 

I will not attempt to draw the precise 
boundary between these two conditions. 
Each individual among you must deter- 
mine the question for himself. It is not 
for me to sit in judgment upon your cir- 
cumstances ; but know that a day is com- 
ing, when all these secrets shall be laid 
open—-and when the God who seeth eve- 
ry heart shall tell with unerring discern- 
ment, whether the selfishness of diseased 
nature or the charity of the gospel, had 
the rule over it. 

I. First then, as to those Christians 
who occupy such a condition of life that 
they may give. It is more blessed for 
them to give than to receive. (1.) Be- 
cause in so doing, they are like unto 
God; and to be formed again after his 
image, is the great purpose of the dispen- 
sation we sit under. We have nothing 
that we did not receive, but we cannot say 
so of God. He is the unfailing fountain 
out of which every thing flows. All ori- 
ginates in Him. A mighty tide of com- 
munication from God to His creatures, 
has been kept up incessantly from the 
first hour of creation. It flows without 
intermission. It spreads over the whole 
extent of the universe He has formed. 
It carries light, and sustenance, and en- 
joyment, through the wide dominions of 
Nature and of Providence. It reaches to 
the very humblest individual among His 
children. There is not one shred or 
fragment in the awful immensity of His 
works which is overlooked by Him; and, 
wonderful to tell, the same God whose 
arm is abroad over all worlds, has His 
eye fastened attentively upon every one 
of us, compasses all our goings, gives di- 
rection to every footstep, sustains us and 
holds us together through every minute 
of our existence—and, at the very time 
that we are living in forgetfulness of 


SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING TO RECEIVING. 





[SERM, 


Him, walking in the counsel of our own 
hearts, and after the sight of our own eyes 
—-is the universal Creator at the right 
hand of each and of all of us, to give us 
every breath which we draw, and every 
comfort which we enjoy. 

Oh! but you may think it is nothing 
to Him, to open His hand liberally. He 
may give and give, and be as full as ev- 
er. He loses nothing by communication, 
But we cannot part with any thing to an- 
other, without depriving ourselves. Such 
an objection as this proceeds from an un- 
scriptural view of God. In the eye of a 
cold natural theology, He is regarded as 
a Being who has nothing in Him answer- 
ing to that which we feel in ourselves— 
when, by a laborious exercise of selfde- 
nial, we perform some great and painful 
act of liberality. 

The theology of nature, or rather of 
the schools, makes an orderly distribution 
of the attributes of God; and, conceiving 
His power to be some kind of physical 
and resistless energy, it also conceives 
that He can accomplish every deed of 
benevolence however exalted it may be 
without so much as the feeling of a sacri- 
fice. Now this I think is not the lesson 
of the Bible. He who hath seen the 
Father, and is alone competent to declare 
Him, gives me a somewhat different 
view of what I venture to call the con- 
stitution of the Deity. Does not He tell 
us, that to be kind to our friends is no 
great matter; and then He bids us be 
kind to our enemies, and upon what prin- 
ciple 2—-That we may be like unto God. 
Now in the exercise of kindness to ene- 
mies, there is something going on in our 
minds totally different, from what goes on 


'in the exercise of kindness to friends ; 


and I do not see the significancy of the 
argument at all, unless you grant me, 
that there must be a difference correspond- 
ing to this in the mind of the Deity. In 
the exercise of kindness to the man, who 
hates you, there is a preference of his 
good to the indulgence of your own re- 
sentment—there is a victory over the 
natural tendencies of your constitution— 
there is a struggling with these tendencies 
—there is an act of forbearance—there 
is a triumph of the principle of love, over - 
a painful and urgent sense of provocation. 
Now, if in all this we are like unto God, 
must there not be something similar to all 


XXXVI] 


this in the benevolence of God? Or, in 
other words, there must be something in 
His character, corresponding to that 
which imparts a character of sublime 
elevation, to the meek and persevering 
charity of an injured Christian. 
But again. When we are told that 
(sod so loved the world, as to send His 
only begotten Son into it, that whosoever 
believeth in Him should not perish but 
have everlasting life—what is the mean- 
ing of the emphatic so? It means no- 
thing at all, if God, in the act of giving 
up His Son to death, did not make the 
‘same kind of sacrifice with the parent, 
who, amid the agonies of his struggling 
bosom, surrenders his only child at some 
call of duty or of patriotism. If it was 
at the bidding of God that Abraham en- 
tertained strangers, this was some proof 
of his love to Him. But it was a much 
higher proof of it that he so loved Him, 
as to be in readiness at His requirement, 
to offer up Isaac. Now there is some- 
thing analogous to this in God. It proves 
His love to men, that He opens His 
hand, and feeds them all out of the exu- 
berance which flows from it; but it is a 
higher proof of love that He so loved 
them as to give up His only begotten 
‘Son in their behalf 
And the argument loses all its impres- 
sion, if God did not experience a some- 
thing in His mind, corresponding to that 
which is felt by an earthly parent—when, 
keeping all the struggles of his natural 
tenderness under the control of principle, 
he gives up his son at the impulse of some 
pure and lofty requirement. Dismiss 
then my brethren ail your scholastic con- 
ceptions of the Deity ; and keep by that 
warm and affecting view of Him, that we 
have in the Bible. For if we do not, we 
will lose the impression of many of its 
most moving arguments; and our hearts 
will remain shut against its most powerful 
and pathetic representations of the cha- 
racter of God. To come back then upon 
this objection, that it is nothing to God to 
open His hand liberally, for He may give 
and give and be as full as ever. And 
does God make no sacrifice in the act of 
giving unto you? A pure and unfallen 
angel would not detract from the praises 
of His Creator—by language such as 
this. And what are you? A rebel to 
His laws, who will yet persist in saying, 


SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING TO RECEIVING, 


299 


that God, by feeding you with His bounty, 
is making no sacrifice. Why, He is 
holding you up though you be a spec- 
tacle injurious to His honour. He is 
grieved with you every day, and yet 
every day He loads you with His benefits. 
Every sinner is an offence to Him, and 
what restrains Him from sweeping the 
offence away from the face of His crea: 
tion altogether. It is of His mercies that 
youare not consumed—that He still bears 
with you—that He keeps you in life and in 
all that is necessary to life—that He holds 
on with youa Jittle longer and a little longer 
—that He plies you with warnings and 
opportunities ; and brings the voice of a 
beseeching God to bear upon you, calling 
you to turn and be reconciled and live— 
What! Has He never for your sakes, 
given up any thing that is dear and valua- 
ble to Himself? Did not He give up 
His Son to the death for you? All your 
gifts to the poor are nothing to this. 
When Abraham lifted up the knife over 
his son Isaac—he felt that he was making 
a mightier and more painful sacrifice, 
than by all his alms-deeds and hospitali- 
ties. God had compassion on the pa- 
rental feelings of Abraham, and He 
spared them But He spared not His 
own Son. He gave Him up for us all. 
And shall we when we give up a trifling 
proportion of our substance to the relief 
of our poorer brethren, talk of the sacri- 
fice we are making—as if there was no- 
thing like it in the benevolence of God ? 
Talk not then of your deprivations and 
your sacrifices. But “be perfect even as 
your Father in heaven is perfect.” 
Under this particular, I have one prac- 
tical direction to come forward with. 
When you do an act of benevolence, 
think of the extent of the sacrifice you 
have made by it. It is a delightful exer- 
cise to be kind among people who have 
a sense of your kindness—to give away 
money, if you get an ample return of 
gratitude back again—to pay a visit of 
tenderness to the poor family, who load 
you with their acknowledgments and 
their blessings—when you are received 
with the smile of welcome ; and soothed 
by the soft accents of the widow who 
prays for a reward upon you, or of the 
children who hail you as an angel of 
mercy. Oh, it is easy to move gently 
along, through such scenes and families 


300 


as these. But have a care, that you are 
not ministering all the while to your own 
indulgence and your own vanity; for 
then verily I say unto you “ you have 
your reward.” The charity of the gos- 
p:l is not the fine and exquisite feeling of 
poetry. It is a sturdy and enduring 
principle. It carries you through the 
rough and discouraging realities of life, 
and it enables you to stand them; and it 
is only, my brethren, when you can be 
kind in spite of ingratitude—when you 
can give to the poor man, not because he 
thanks you, but because he needs it— 
when you can be unwearied in well- 
doing, amid all the bitterness of envy, and 
all the growlings of discontent—Then, 
and then only is it, that you endure hard- 
ness as a good soldier of Christ Jesus ; 
or can be called the children of the 
Highest, who is kind to the unthankful 
and the evil, and sendeth down his rain 
on the just and on the unjust. 


(2.) It is more blessed to give than to 
receive—for to give as a Christian, is to 
part with that which is temporal, and to 
show a preference for that which is eter- 
nal. By an alms-deed you give up part 
of this world’s goods. By a piece of ser- 
vice, you give upa part of this world’s 
ease. By an act of civility, you give up 
to another that time which might have 
been employed in the prosecution of some 
design or interest of your own. But, 
lest [ flatter you into a delusive security, 
I again recur to the question “ What is 
the extent of the sacrifice?” For IL am 
well aware, that the part thus given up, 
may be so small, as to be no evidence 
whatever of a mind bent upon eternity. 
You may gratify your feelings of com- 
passion at an expense so small, that you 
cannot be said to have made any sacrifice. 
You may gain the good-will of all your 
neighbours by this act of kindness, and 
count the purchase a cheap one. You 
may gratify your love of ostentation by 
an act of alms-giving, and do it upon as 
easy terms, as you gratify your love of 
amusement by an act of attendance upon 
the ball-room or the theatre. You may 
Jay out your penny a-week, and be amply 
repaid for the sacrifice, by the distinction 
of being one of a society, and by the 

leasure of sharing in the business of it. 
[n all this you have your reward ; but I 


SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING TO RECEIVING. 


[sER#. 


do not yet see any evidence of a soul 
setting its affections upon the things above 
in-all this. Oh! no my brethren! A 
benevolent society is a very pleasurable 
exhibition; and I trust that in the one I 
am now pleading for, there is much of 
that genuine principle which shrinks 
from the pollution of vanity. But were 
I to bestow that praise upon the mere act 
which only belongs to the principle, 
I might incur all the guilt of a lying 
prophet. IL might be saying “ Peace, 
peace when there is no peace.” I might 
be proclaiming the praise of God, to him 
who had already sought and obtained his 
reward in the praise of man. 1 might be 
regaling with the full prospect of heaven, 
him whose heart tends to the earth, and 
is earthly—whose trifling charity has not 
the weight of a straw upon the luxury of 
his table, or the yearly amount of that ac- 
cumulating wealth upon which he sets 
his confidence. Were I, my brethren, 
who have come from a distance, to adopt 
the language of a polite and insinuating 
flattery, and send you all away so safe 
and so satisfied with the charities you 
have performed—I might be doing as 
much mischief, as if I travelled the coun- 
try, and revived the old priestly trade of 
the sale of indulgences. None more 
ready than a Christian to enter into 
a scheme of benevolence ; but Jet it never 
be forgotten, that a scheme of benevo- 
lence may be entered into by many, who 
fall miserably short of the altogether 
Christian. Oh what a multitude of men 
and of women may be found, who can 
give their pennies a-week with the hand, 
while their heart is still with the treas- 
ures of a perishable world. Our Saviour 
was rich and for our sake He became 
poor. Here was the extent of His sacri- 
fice. Now we may give in a thousand 
directions for the sake of others; and yet 
be sensibly as rich as ever. I am not 
calling upon you to make any great 
or romantic sacrifice. 1 do not ask you, 
in deed and in performance, to forsake all; 
but I say that you are short of what you 
ought to be, if you are not in readiness to 
forsake all upon a clear warning. I say 
that you may give your name to every 
subseription-list, and bestow your some- 
thing upon every petitioner; and yet 
stand at an infinite distance from the ex- 
ample you are called upon to imitate. 


XXXVI] 


Lhe great point of inquiry should be, 
“Is the heart right with God:” Now I 
Want to save you from a common delu- 
sion, when I tell you, that, out of your 
crumbs and fragments, many a Lazarus 
may be fed—while yet, like Dives, your 
heart may be wholly set upon the meat 
that perisheth. It is well, and very well, 
that you are a member of a benevolent 
society ; and I shall rejoice to think of it 
as one of the smaller fruits of that mighty 
principle which brings the whole heart 
under its dominion—which makes you 
willing to renounce self and all its earth- 


SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING. TO RECEIVING. 


30] 


God who is the discerner of the heart, 
sees whcther yours is in such a state of 
principle, as to be in readiness for the 
surrender, so soon as a clear requirement 
of conscience is upon you. Were perse- 
cution again to light up its fires in this 
land of quietness—it is to be hoped, that 
there are many who would cheerfully 
take the spoiling of their goods, rather 
than abandon the cause of the gospel. 
They have not the opportunity of mani- 
festing themselves to the world ; but the 
discerning eye of God stands in no need 
of such a manifestation. He can fathom 


ly interests at the call of duty—which | all the secrecies of the inner man ; and, 


sinks the pursuits and enjoyments of time 
in the prospects of eternity—Such a prin- 
ciple as would not merely dictate the sur- 
render of a penny for the poverty of 
a neighbour, but would dictate the sur- 





in the great day of the revelation of hid- 
den things, it will be seen who they are 
that would have forsaken all to follow 
after Christ. 

Such as these, may have no opportuni- 


render of every earthly distinction and en- | ty of showing the whole extent of their 
joyment on the clear call of conscience | devotion to Christ, by any actual perfor- 


or Revelation—Such a principle as has | mance. 
often been put to the trial in those woful | 


seasons, when a sweeping tide of bank- 
ruptcy sets in upon a country; and the 
sanguine speculations of one man, on the 
false statements of another, have involved 
many an innocent sufferer, in the loss of 
all that belongs to him. Could I obtain 
a view of his heart now, I might collect 
a more satisfying evidence of the way in 
which it stands affected by the things of 
another world, than I possibly could do, 
from all the odd fractions of his wealth, 
which he made over to his poorer breth- 
ren in the day of prosperity. When 
stript bare of his earthly possessions, 
is the hope of eternity enough for him ? 
[s his heart filled with the agonies of re- 
sentment and despair; or with peaceful 
resignation to the will of God, and chari- 
ty to the human instrument of his suffer- 
ings? Now is the time for the fair trial 
of his principles; and now may we learn 
if to him belongs the blessedness of en- 
during it. And it will go further to 
prove his claim to the kingdom of heaven, 
than all the charities of his brighter days 
—if trust in Providence, and prayer for 
the forgiveness of those who have injured 
him, shall be found to occupy and to sus- 
tain his heart under the fallen fortunes of 
his family. 

There may be no call upon you to 
surrender all, in which case you are 
spared the very act of a surrender.” But 





But though we cannot speak to 
their performance, we can speak to their 
principle. ‘They sit loose to the interests 
of this world, and their heart is fully di- 
rected to the treasure which is in heaven. 
They have the willing mind ; and, when- 
ever their means and their opportunities 
allow, they will show that they have 
it. The thing given may be in itself so 
very small, as to be no evidence whatever 
of the preference of eternity over time. 
Think not then that by the giving of this 
thing, you will obtain heaven. Heaven, 
my brethren, is not so purchased. You 
are made meet for heaven by the Spirit 
working in your soul a conformity to the 
image of the Saviour; and if the charity 
which filled his heart, actuate and inflame 
yours, it will carry you forward with 
a mighty impulse to every likely or 
practicable scheme for the interests of hu- 
manity, and for the alleviation of all it 
sufferings. 

Before I pass on to the second head of 
discourse, I shall give my answer to 4 
question, which may have been prompted. 
by some of the observations I have alrea- 
dy come forward with. 

Does not the very object of this society, 
it may be asked, furnish the opportunity 
we are in quest of? May it not put the 
whole extent of a Christain’s principles to 
the test? Has he it not in his power to 
forsake all in following the injunction of 
Christ, “Be. willing to distribute, and 


302 


teady to communicate?’ What is to 
hinder him from selling all his goods to 
feed the poor? And if his penny a-week 
be no decisive evidence of the Christian 
principle which actuates him, may not 
the evidence be made still more decisive. 
by throwing his all into the treasury of 
our beneficence ? 

When a Chesistian has a clear and ur- 
gent call of conscience upon him, it 
is his duty to obey that call in the face of 
every sacrifice, however painful, and 
however mortifying. But it is also his 
duty to inform and to enlighten his con- 
science; and if, with this view, he were 
to cast about for advice, and do me the 
honour of making me one of his advisers, 
I would submit to him the following short 
representation. 

There are many ways in which a man 
may show, that he has less value for this 
world’s wealth, than hisneighbours around 
him. Why? He may do so by putting 
forth his hand to destroy it. He may set 
it on fire. He may strip himself of 
all that belongs to him by throwing it 
away: but none will give to such fanati- 
cal extravagancies as these, the credit 
which is only due to the spirit of love, 
and of power, and of a sound mind. 

It is not enough, then, that you prove 
your indifference to this world’s wealth 
by parting with it; you must have an 
object in parting with it, and the question 
is, what should that object be? Now the 
feeding of the poor is only one of the ma- 
ny objects, for which you are entrusted 
with the gifts of Providence. You are 
called upon to love your neighbour as 
yourself; but you are not called upon to 
love him better than yourself. Your 
own subsistence is an object, therefore, 
which it is not your duty to surrender. 
This is one limit; and there are many 
others. If you provide not for your own 
family, you are worse than an infidel. 
Your parents have a claim upon you. 
You may be rich; and though I do not 
speak of it as a positive duty, to maintain 
the rank and distinction which belong ‘to 
you, yet you are allowed by Christianity 
todo so. The New Testament recogni- 
ses the gradations of society ; and it num- 
bers the rich and the noble among the 
disciples ofthe Saviour. Add to all this, 
that if the whole disposable wealth of the 
country was turned to the one direction of 


SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING TO RECEIVING, 


[SERM. 


feeding the poor—what would become of 
the others, ay, and of the worthier ob- 
jects of Christian benevolence? Have 
not the poor souls as well as bodies} 
Must they not be taught as well as fed? 
Are the narrow limits of our own parish, 
or even our own island, to be impassable 
barriers to our charity? Did not the 
same Saviour who said, Give to him that 
asketh, say also, Go and preach my gos- 
pel to every creature under heaven; and © 
that the labourer is worthy of his. hire ? 
Those who cannot preach may at least 
hire; and if the whole stream of our dis- 
posable wealth were turned to the one 
object of relieving the temporal necessi- 
ties of others—what would become of 
those sublime enterprises, by which, un- 
der the promise of heaven, we send the 
light of Christianity, and all its blessings, 
over the wide and dreary extent of that 
moral wilderness, that 1s every where 
around us—-by which we carry the mes- 
sage of peace into the haunts of savages, 
and speed the arrival of those millennial 
days, when the sacred principles of good- 
will to men shall circulate throngh the 
world ; and when the sun, from its rising 
to its going down, shall witness the peo. 
ple of all the countries it shines upon, to 
be members of one great and universal fa 
mily ? : 

But more than this—if every shilling 
of the disposable wealth of the country, 
were given to feed the poor, it would cre- 
ate more poverty than it provides for. It 
would land us, in all the mischief of a de- 
praved and beggarly population. That 
subsistence, which they could obtain from 
the prodigal and injudicious charity of 
others, they would never think of earning 
for themselves. Idleness and profligacy 
would lay hold of the great mass of our 
peasantry. Every honourable desire af- 
ter independence, would be extinguished ; 
and the people of thé land, thrown loose 
from every call to the exertions of regular 
industry, would spread disorder over the 
whole face of the country. It does not 
occur to the soft daughters of sensibility, 
but it is not on that account the less true; 
that if every purse were emptied in the 
cause of poverty—there would be more 
want and hunger and hardship in our 
neighborhood, than there is at this mo- 
ment. With the extention of your fund, 
you would just multiply the crowd of 


wxve] 


competitors-—each pressing forward for 
his share, and jostling out his more mod- 
est and unobtrusive neighbour, who would 
be left to pine in secret over his untold 
and unnoticed indigence. The clamor- 
ous and undeserving poor, would in time 
spread themselves over the whole of that 
ground, which should only be occupied 
by the children of he!p'essness: and, af- 
ter the expenditure of millions, it would 
be found that there was more unrelieved 
want, and more unsoftened wretchedness 
in the country, than ever. 


Il. I now come to a far more effectual 
check upon the mischiefs I have alluded 
to, than even the judgment and cautious 
inguiry of the giver. I proceed, in the 
second place, to the duties of those who 
are placed in such a situation of life, as 
to become receivers; and the first thing 
I have to propose to them is, that, if it be 
more blessed to give than to receive, then 
it is merely putting this assertion of my 
text into another form, when I say that it 
is less blessed to receive than to give. 
There may be something inthis to startle 
and alarm the feelings of the poor. What! 
they may say, is our poverty a crime in 
the eye of Heaven? Are we to be pun- 
ished for our circumstances? Are we to 
be degraded into an inferior degree of 
blessedness, because our situation imposes 
upon us the painful necessity of receiving 
from another, what, with all our industr 
we cannot earn for ourselves? We af: 
ways understood the gospel to be a mes- 
sage of glad tidings to the poor; that its 
richest consolations were addressed to 
them ; that through it God hath chosen 
the poor of this world to be heirs of the 
promised kingdom. And shall we now 
_be told, that the man who gives, because 
_-his situation enables him to do so, is 
more blessed than he who is forced by 
his situation to be a receiver ? 

In answer to this I have to observe, 
that man is neither punished nor reward- 
ed for his circumstances—that the king- 
dom is only withheld from the rich, when 
they set their confidence and their affec- 
tions on the world, and despise the offered 
salvation ; and the poor obtain an interest 
in the gospel, not because they are poor, 

but it is because they are rich in faith, 
_ that they are heirs of that kingdom which 


SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF G.VING TO RECEIVING, 


2 


303 


How often shall we have to repeat it, 
that it is not the deed of the hand that God 
looks to, but the dictates of the heart 
which gave rise to it? On this simple 
principle { undertake to prove, that the 
very poorest among you, though -you 
have not a penny to bestow on the neces- 
sities of others, may obtain, not the lower 
blessedness of him whoaccepts of charity, 
but the higher blessedness of him who 
dispenses it; and that even though go 
humble in situation as to be a daily de- 
pendant on another’s bounty, you may 
stand higher in the book of God's remem- 
brance, that even he whose liberality sus- 
tains you, and by the crumbs and frag- 
ments of whose table you are kept from 
Starvation. 

Let me first take the case of those poor, 
who are really notable to give ; but who, 
by the struggles of a painful and honour- 
able industry, have just kept themselves 
above the necessity of receiving. Had 


i'they been a little more idle, and a little 


more thriftless—a thing which very often 
they might easily have been without cen- 
sure and without observation, they be- 
hooved to come upon your charity. ‘They 
could have made good a legal claim to a 
part at least of their maintenance. They 
could have drawn a certain sum out of 
your poors’ fund. But no, they would 
not. Before they will take this sum they 
try what they can do by more work and 
better management. ‘They will not take 
a fraction from you, so long as they can 
shift for themselves. They do as Paul 
the Apostle did before them; they labour 
with their own hands rather than be bur- 
densome to others; and that sum which 
they might have gotten, they suffer you 
to keep entire for the relief of other wants 
still more urgent, and of other families 
still more helpless. 

Now, the question I have to put to you 
is— Who is the giver of this sum?” I 
may take a list of them. I may put 
down the names of the original contribu- 
tors, who make it up by their pennies and 
their sixpences. But there is one name 
which does not appear in the catalogue, 
yet nobler than them all—even the hard- 
working and the honest-hearted labourer, 
who might have obtained the whole sum, 
but refused to touch a single fraction of it 
—who shifted it from himself and let it pass 


God hath promised tothem that love Him. | unimpaired to the lightening of a burden 


304 


still heavier than his own—who declined 
the offer; or to whom the offer was nev- 
er made, because it was known to all, 
that his own hands ministered unto his 
own necessities. He is the giver of this 
sum. Others may have parted with it 
out of their abundance. But he has giv- 
en it out of the sweat of his brow. He 
has risen up early and sat up late, that 


he might have it to bestow on a poorer 
receiving hand but he has a giving heart; 


than himself. It was first gotten from 
the easy liberalities of those who scarcely 
felt it to be a sacrifice. But it was gotten 
a second time out of the bones and mus- 
cles of a generous workman. I trust 
there are hundreds of such in this town 
and neighbourhood. I offer them the 
homage of my respectful congratulations ; 
nor am J doing them a greater honour, 
than the sincerity of my admiration goes 


along with, when I say that they are the | 
best friends of the poor, they are their | 
| wise have been sufficient for him. 


kindest and most generous benefactors. 


But let me go still further down—even | 


to the case of those who are really not 
able to give; but who, burdened with the 
infirmities of age or of disease or of sick- 
ly and deformed children, have at length 
given way to the pressure of circumstan- 
ces, and come under the painful necessity 
of receiving. They may still carry the 
same noble principle along with them; 
and though in outward deed, they are re- 
ceivers—to them may belong all the gen- 


SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING TO RECEIVING. 





[SERM. 


I to put down this sum, more honourable 
to him who has given it—than the golden 
donation to be seen on the forehead of 
many a subscription paper? _O, it is easy 
for us who sit at our warm fire-sides, and 
our plentiful tables, to throw a gift into 
the treasury, and live as softly and luxu- 
riously as ever; but when a man of pov- 
erty submits to voluntary hardships, and 
fears to be burdensome—he may have a~ 


and the eye of the great Discerner may 
there see the sacred principle of charity, in 
its purest and most heavenly exercise. 
Now, it is not necessary to make the 
supposition of so much money being offer- 
ed, and a part of it being given back 
again by each individual in these circum- 
stances. Enough that the individual, by 
his labour and his frugality and his hon- 
est wish to serve others, makes a less sum 
necessary to be offered than would other- 
I trust 
that there are many such individuals; 
and be assured that though they get out 
of the parish fund, though they get out 
of the produce of your society, though 


they get out of the liberality of their 


wealthier acquaintances, though to the 
outward and undiscerning eye of the 
world they are one and all of them re- 
ceivers—in the sight of that high and 
heavenly Witness who pondereth the 
heart of man, they are givers—they are 


erosity of the giver, and all his blessed- | put down as givers in the book of Fis re- 


ness. You may not be able so to labour, 
as not to be burdensome; but all of you 
are able to do your best—and if you so 
work and so manage, that you are as lit- 
tle burdensome as you can, your names 
may be recorded in the book of Heaven 
among the most benevolent of the species. 
[ love the poor, and I have this very thing 
to record of them; and I have no doubt 
that there are some now present, who 
have witnessed it along with me. Have 
you never offered any of them a sum, out 
of the public charity; and received part 
of it back again? Our necessities force 
us to take something ; but we shall not 
take to the whole extent of your offer. 
We request that you will keep a part, and 
leave us to make a fend with the remain- 
der. Who, I ask again, has given me 
the sum that is soreturnedtome? Who 
is it that has fed the poor and clothed the 


membrance—and, if what they do and 
suffer in this way be done unto Jesus and 
suffered for His sake—to them will be as- 
signed all the blessedness of givers in the 
day of reckoning. 

The duty which I am now pressing 
upon the poor of being as little burden- 
some as they can, is the very lesson to be 
drawn from the passage now before us. 
On what occasion is it that Paul says in 
my text—“ It is more blessed to give than 
to receive?’ It is true that he gave the 
people of Ephesus christian instruction, 
he ministered to them in spiritual things ; 
but he is speaking of the way in which 
he obtained a temporal subsistence for 
himself and for his companions. In re- 
ference to meat and to clothing he did not 
give to the Ephesians; but he wrought 
for it to himself and his own company 
and it was doing this which brought down 


naked out of it? ‘T’o whose account am! upon him the blessedness of giving. Think 


XXxvi] SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING TO RECEIVING. 805 


not then, my brethren, that your poverty | hood, I am sure that many of my hearers 
shuts you out from the same reward.!can do it for me. There is the indus- 
Though you do not give with the hand, | trious labourer, who nobly clears. his way 
you may earn the blessedness of giving | among all the difficulties which surround 
that Paul earned ; and you may doit in|him. There is the frugal house-wife, 
the very same way that he did. You|who lends her important share to the 
may covet no man’s silver or gold or ap- | interests of the young family. There is 
parel ; and, in as far as age or disease or | the servant, who ministers out of her own 
the pressure ot a numerous and sickly off- | wages—to those parents whom age has 
spring will let you, you may say with | bowed down in helpless dependence upon 
the apostle “ Yea you yourselves know | the gratitude of their offspring. In the 
that these hands have ministered unto my | eye of the world, they may not have 
necessities, and to them that are with me.” | given a penny to the cause ; but, substan- 
In this age of benevolent exertion, it is| tially and in effect, they have supported 
delightful to see the number of societies,| it. They have circulated Bibles; they 
and the ready encouragement which| have sent forth missionaries; through 
comes in upon them from the liberality| them the stream of Christian lighi 1as 
of the public—an encouragement which | been poured more copiously on the w Ids 
I trust will never be withdrawn, till| of Paganism; and many a conve ted 
Bibles are circulated through all coun-| Indian who meets them in heaven, wil! 
tries, and till missionaries have planted | bear them witness, that they have added 
in every land the faith of a crucified | to the number of the redeemed by giving 
Saviour. But while witnessing the|the message of peace a specdier circu- 
splendid names, and the princely dona-| lation. 
tions which appear in the printed lists of | I now conclude, and I do it with one 
these societies, I cannot forbear the re-| observation. Ask the giver if he would 
flection that there are many others whose | not feel more disposed to be liberal, and 
labour of love is unnoticed and unre-! to open a wider hand to the distresses of 
corded, who will be registered in the book | those around him, were he assured that 
of heaven as fellow-helpers to the cause. | all he gave went to the alleviation of real 
There are poor who cannot afford to distress. It is the experience of imposi- 
give ; but who, struggling manfully with | tion which shuts many a heart—and this 
the necessity of their circumstances, keep | is a lesson both to the receivers and the 
themselves from being burdensome to| visitors of this society. How much is it 
others—and God, who judgeth righteous-| in the power of the lower classes, to be- 
ly, will put down in part to their account, | friend their poorer brethren, by the rigid 
the sum which they have suffered to go| observance of the duty I have now been 
untouched and unencroached upon to the| pressing upon them. “They would bring 
interest of the Redeemer’s kingdom. | down upon them an aid and a sympathy 
There are others who cannot afford to| from the rich, which they have never yet 
give; but who strive to the uttermost—-| experienced. The counterfeit and the 
and, by dint of sobriety and of frugal} worthless poor, do a world of mischief 
management, reduce the supply of charity | to the cause of beneficence. ‘They ob- 
to a sum as small as possible. God will} tain for themselves that, which the unfor- 
not treat them as receivers. He will put} tunate and deserving poor should have 
down to their account all that they have| gotten. And, what is still more than 
saved to the givers; and He will say,j this, they stifle in the hearts of the rich, 
that, by the whole amount of what is thus | those emotions of sympathy which would 
saved, they have fed the stream of that| otherwise have kindled in them. They 
benevolence which is dirécted to other| throw the cold damp of suspicion over 
objects. The contributors, whose names | their charities. The money, which would 
are presented every year to the eye of the| have circulated as freely as the light of 
public, are not the only contributors to| day among the habitations of the wretch- 
our Bible and Missionary Societies. I] ed, is detained, as by an iron grasp, in the 
could <!l you of more; and though I| hands of men who have at one time 
¢aaciot point my finger to those of them] been misled by the dissimulations of the 
who occupy this town and neighbour-| poor, and at another provoked by theis 
39 





306 


ingratitude. Ye amiable and humane 
visitors of this society, it lies upon you to 
remedy this evil. Convince the givers 
heictand Gros: of the judicious application 
of the money in your hands; and more 
will flow in upon you. Be vigilant, be 
discerning, be impartial. Your judg- 
ment must be brought into action, as well 
as your sympathy. ‘There is as much 
of the coolness of principle as of the high 
ecstacy of feeling im the benevolence of a 
Christian; and my prayer is, that the 
kind office you are engaged in may be 
blessed to your own souls—that a single 
aim to the glory of God may animate all 
your exertions—that the glittering parade 
of ostentation may not deceive you—that, 
instead of seeking the honour which 
cometh from one another, you may seek 
the honour that cometh from God only— 
that the tenderness you feel for others, 
may be the genuine fruit of that spirit 
which is given to them who believe— 
that the labour you have undertaken may 
indeed be undertaken in the Lord—and 
then, J can assure you, it will not be in 
vain; and I call upon you to be stedfast 
and immovable, and always abounding | 
therein. 
To conclude. 
actual suffering in all its forms; and, be 
it ignorance, or disease, or age, or lunacy, 
or hunger, or nakedness, the claim upon 
our beneficence is made out in one and 
all of these cases, if it just be made out 
that they exist—and with the same tone 
_ of earnestness by which I call upon you 
to instruct the ignorant, and to harbour 
the deranged, and to minister to the dis- 
eased, do I call upon you to feed the hun- 
gry, and to clothe the naked, and to give 
of your abundance to him who is in need. 
There is no difference among all these 
cases in the obligation to grant relief; 
and the only difference I ever contended 
for, is in the way of going about it. Do 


It is our duty to relieve 


the thing in such a way, as shall relieve 
the present case ; and do not the thing in 
such a way, as shall have the effect of 
multiplying the future cases. Now you 
do not multiply the future cases of dis- 
ease, or derangement, or dumbness, or 
blindness by giving the utmost publicity 
to your plans for relieving them, by 
pleading for them from the pulpit, by 
building hospitals and asylums, and blaz- 
oning the names and the payments of 


SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING TO RECEIVING. 


[SERM, 


subscribers in the columns of a news: 
paper. 

But you do multiply the future cases 
of indigence, by all this noise and all this 
parading, about a plan or a society which 
has for its object the general relief of in- 
digence. And the plain cause of the dif- 
ference between the former and the latter 
is, that a man almost never becomes a 
voluntary object for the charity of an hos- 
pital ; but he may, and in point of fact he 
often does, become a voluntary object for 
the charity of alms: And therefore it is, 
that the less he knows about the existence 
of the last kind of charity the better ; and 
a want of attention to this principle is, I 
am sorry to say, ripening or preparing 
the population of our great towns, for that 
system which now obtains with such full 
and mischievous operation in England— 
and that delicacy, to keep alive which 
Paul gave up a portion of his apostolical 
labours, a minister now-a-days is called 
upon also to leave his parish duties, but 
for the very different purpose of breaking 
it down: And thus it is, that, under the 
soft guise of humanity, a system may be 
instituted, which, with kindness for its 


| principle, may carry cruelty in its opera- 


tion—ay, and when the yearly assessment 
comes to be established, and the provision 
ofa mistaken benevolence is made known, 
and the poor have found their way to 
it—they will set in upon you by thou- 
sands; and the money which is withheld 
from the endowment of more schools and 
more churches and more ministers to 
meet the moral and religious wants of an 
increasing population—will be as nothing 
to the hungry and unquenchable demands 
of a people, whom you have seduced from 
that principle of independence whick 
Christianity teaches, and which the de 
spised exertions of the Christian minister 
alone can keep alive. 

And is the cause of indigence then to 
be altogether abandoned? ‘This does not 
follow. The duty of relieving want 
is unquestionable, but there is a way 
of going about it; and while 1 honestly 
wish it were carried to a ten old greater 
extent than it is at this moment—all I 
contend for is, that it shall be invested 
with the good old scriptural attribute of 
secrecy. Let societies be multiplied and 
pled for and publicly made known for 
the improvement of the mind, and the re- 





XXXVI] 


lief of every one species of involuntary 
suffering—but do let the relief of want be 
more confided than it is, to the discern- 
ment and discretion and active benevo- 
lence of individuals. It is my earnest de- 
sire that every man among you were 
a Cornelius, and every woman among 
you were a Dorcas—but I should like 
the alms of the one unseen by human 
eye to ascend as a memorial before God; 
and the making of coats and garments by 
the other to remain unknown, till the 
nand of death shall discover it. Were 
every individual among you, to give up 
one-tenth of his income to the comfort of 
those in your neighbourhood, I am sure 
I should be among the first to rejoice; 
- but let each of you give one-hundredth of 
his income to some published and pro- 
claimed charity for bread to the hungry 
and clothing to the naked ; and a fearful 
suspicion of the consequences would chill 
my every feeling of benevolent approba- 
tion. It is true that concert carries an 
advantage along with it; but is not con- 
cert consistent with secrecy? Is it ne- 
cessary that the trumpet be sounded upon 
the subject, either in the pulpit or out of 
it? Would not the gradual abolition of 
the public charities, for like the abolition 
of every established mischief I fear it 
must be gradual, give.an impulse to indi- 
vidual benevolence to replace the want 
of them ; and, after almsgiving had taken 
this salutary direction, are there not 
Christians to be found in every street, 
who, unknowing and unknown to all but 
themselves, could meet together in the 
name of Christ; and, under the eye of 
their heavenly Witness, could give their 
attention and their charity and their wis- 
dom to that work and labour of love 
which he Has assigned to them ? 

I feel myself oppressed by the want of 
time and of space, for I am aware of ma- 
ny questions which I must leave unresolv- 
ed behind me; but there is one which I 
cannot pass over. Does a published and 
proclaimed plan for the relief of orphans 
come under the animadversions which I 
have felt it my duty to advance, against 
any such plan for the relief of indigence 
in general? O no, my brethren. A 
public charity for the relief of general in- 
digence, may tempt many a father to 
the relaxation of his industry, and many 
a mother to the relaxation of her manage- 


SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING TO RECEIVING. 


30” 


ment ; but a charity for the relief of on 
phans will neither tempt the one nor the 
other to a voluntary martyrdom. Carry 
the former system to a certain extent 

and you will witness many a parent pro 
viding not for those of his own house 

but carry the latter system to the full ex- 
tent of its object, and you never can have 
such a spectacle as this to freeze and 
to discourage you. In the one case, many 
of the children you feed and you educate, 
may be devolved upon you by the wilful » 
negligence of a parent. In the other 
case they are devolved upon you by the 
will of God. He has called away the . 
parents to another scene; and He has 
left to you the care of their helpless fam- 
ily. If you are officious enough to do 
that which is more the duty of another, 
you may have performed his work ; but 
by tempting him to a dereliction of his 
principles, you have done it at the ex- 
pense of his soul. This language is 
surely not too strong, if by your injudi- 
cious charity you have made a single pa- 
rent let down the industriousness of his 
habits—for by so doing yon have made 
him worse than an infidel. But such is 
the wisdom of the object to which you 
have attached yourselves, that though 
you do all which you propose—you in- 
terfere with no man’s duty; you tempt 
and you corrupt no parents, for alas, 
where are they ?—you stifle no one feel- 
ing of parental tenderness, for this is what 
the cold hand of death hath already done 
—you withdraw no children from father’s 
or mother’s care, for fathers and mothers 
are by the mysterious Providence of God 
withdrawn from.them: And that duty 
which at one time belonged to another, 
has become singly and entirely yours. O 
how I rejoice, when the lessons of wis- 
dom are at one with the best and the most 
delightful of our sympathies—when com- 
passion may give full vent to its tender- 
ness, and no one principle or maxim of 
prudence is trenched upon—when the 
sweet movements of pity may be cherish- 
ed and indulged to the uttermost, and truth 
brings no one severity to scowl upon us, 
or tell us with stern authoritative voice 
that we expatiate on a forbidden territory. 
Keep by your professed object, my breth- 
ren ; and if you do so, let your liberality 
know no other limit, than that the object 
be provided for. 


308 


And let me not dismiss you without at 
least an observation, which I pray God 
may bless by the enlightening influences 
of His Spirit, so as to undeceive many 
who build their confidence upon their 
charities. A man, under the impulse of 
natural feeling, may do many a deed of 
tenderness; and yet may have a mind to- 
tally unfurnished with a sense of God, 
and a’ life totally polluted by conformity 
to the world. It is well that God has 
provided society with so many natural se- 
curities for its existence, in the constitu- 
tion of the members who compose it—- 
just as it is well for the preservation of 
the other tribes of animals, that He has 
endowed them with the instinct of affec- 
tion for their young. But ever remem- 
ber that feeling is one thing and principle 
:§ another; and to give the stamp of 
religion to your doings, a sense of God 
and of His will, must mingle and give 
the tone and the direction to every one of 
them. And thus while it is true that part 
of pure religion and undefiled is to visit 
the fatherless and the widow in their af- 
fliction, it is only when this is done with 
a reference of the heart to God and the 
Father. And yet how many, because en- 
dowed with the constitutional tenderness, 
think that upon this single peculiarity, 
they may walk in the sight of their own 
eyes here, and be translated with all the 
waywardness of a heart alienated from 
God and devoted with every one of its af- 
fections to the creature, to the joys and the 
rewards of an unfading hereafter: And 
therefore it is, that I call upon you not to 
put asunder what God has joined—not to 
found your confidence upon a single half. 
text of a record, which in the vast majori- 
ty of its contents, you despise and put 
away from you—not to open your eye to 
one clause of a verse, and shut your eye 
fo the other clause of it; but know that 
pure religion and undefiled before God 
and the Father is this, to visit the father- 
less and the widows in their affliction and 
to keep yourselves unspotted from the 
world. 


I have hitherto confined myself to gen- 
eral principles; but let me not forget the 
claims of that institution which I have 
been appointed to advocate before you. 
Nor have I forgotten them. In this age 
of benevolent institutions, when some of 


SLPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF 





GIVING TO RECEIVING. [SERM. 
them are so legalized by the strong hand 
of authority, and some of them are so pa- 
raded before the eyes of the public, as te 
be counted upon by the receiver; as to 
tempt him from the virtue of the text ; as 
to relax his economical habits, and of 
course to create and to multiply more 
cases of distress than it is in the power of 
human contrivances ever to provide for— 
I say, in these circumstances, one feels a 
comfort in attaching himself to the cause 
of an endowment, which may be support- 
ed to any extent you please, without its 
ever being possible to realize the mischief 
I am now alluding to. Why, my breth- 
ren—the very confinement of the object 
to a limited number of families, is of it- 
self a security, against that mischief 
which our soundest economists apprehend 
from the number and the publicity of our 
benevolent institutions. Were the country, 
upon the spontaneous movement of its 
own kindly and religious feelings, to take 
upon itself the care of our destitute or- 
phans, it just resolves itself into an aug- 
mentation of the clerical patrimony. It 
is only adding a little to the provision of 
the legislature in our behalf; and it ia 
such an addition as will not give one sin- 
gle luxury to our table, or tempt us to the 
pride of life by enabling us to tack one 
vanity more to the splendour of our esta- 
blishment. Iam not aware of a single 
hurtful effect, that can be alleged against 
the charity for which I am contending. 
I know of nothing that should throw 
the cold damp of suspicion over it—and 
therefore it is that I feel no restraint what- 
ever, in laying it before you as an open 
field, on which the benevolence of the 
public may expatiate, without fear and 
without encumbrance. It is true that 
the sympathies of a man are ever most 
alive to those distresses which may fall 
upon himself—and that it is for a minister 
to feel the deepest emotion, at the sad pic- 
ture of the breaking up of a minister’s fa- 
mily. When the sons and the daughters 
of clergymen are left to go, they know 
not whither, from the peacefulness of 
their father’s dwelling—never were poor 
outcasts less prepared by the education 
and the habits of former years, for the 
scowl of au unpitying world; nor can | 
figure a drearier and more affecting con- 
trast, than that whicl obtains between the 
blissful security of their earlier days, and 


XXXVI] 

the dark and unshielded condition, to 
which the hand of Providence has now 
brought them. It is not necessary, for 
the purpose of awakening your sensibili- 
ties on this subject, todwell upon every one 
circumstance of distress which enters into 
the sufferings of this bereaved family— 
or to tell you of the many friends they 
must abandon, and the many charms of 
that peaceful neighbourhood which they 
must quit for ever. But when they look 
abroad, and survey the innumerable beau- 
ties which the God of nature has scatter- 
ed so profusely around. them—when they 
see the sun throwing its unclouded splen- 
dours over the whole neighbourhood— 
when, on the fair side of the year, they 
behold the smiling aspect of the country ; 
and at every footstep they take, some 
flower appears in its loveliness, or some 
bird offers its melody to delight them— 
when they see quietness on all the hills, 
and every field glowing in the pride and 
luxury of vegetation—when they see 
summer throwing its rich garment over 
this goodly scene of magnificence and 
glory, a, think, in the bitterness of their 
souls, that this is the last summer which 
they shall ever witness, smiling on that 
scene which all the ties of habit and of 
affection have endeared to them—when 
this thought, melancholy as it is, is lost 
and overborne in the far darker melan- 
choly of a father torn from their embrace, 
and a helpless family left to find their 
way unprotected and alone through the 
lowering futurity of this earthly pilgrim- 
age—Do you wonder, that their feeling 





SERMON 


ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 


309 


hearts should be ready to lose hold of the 
promise, that He who decks the lily fair 
in flowery pride, will guide them in safe 
ty through the world, and at last raise al 
who believe in Him to the bloom and the 
vigour of immortality? The flowers of 
the field, they toil not, neither do they 
spin, yet your Heavenly Father careth 
for them—and how much more careth He 
for you, O ye of little faith. 

O, it is kind in you, my brethren, to set 
yourselves forward as the instruments of 
this promise—to house these unprotected 
wanderers—to shield them from the blast 
they are far too soft and tender to endure 
—and to lighten the severity of that fall 
which they have suffered, by the prema- 
ture loss of a father, who now only lives 
in the memory of a revering people, and 
the affections of a despairing family. Do, 
my brethren, give out of your abundance. 
You know not what the hand of death 
may ere long bring upon your own hab- 
itations. Work then while it is day ; for 
the night cometh when no man can work. 
Ifthe Discerner of the heart, who counts 
even a cup of cold water given to the 
least of His little ones, sees of your offer- 
ing that it is done unto Him, and that it 
is for the love you bear His gospel, and 
the value you have for His ministers—if 
He can recognise it as the fruit of that 
mighty principle which purifies the heart, 
and sends forth the copious streams of all 
that is good and kind and generous into 
the walk and conversation, then verily I 
say unto you that you shall by no means 
lose your reward. 


XXXVII. 


On Religious Establishments.* 


‘‘ And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faith- 
ful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” —2 Timoruy ii. 2. 


Tne apostle, by this verse, makes pro-| least exemplifies it from his own age, 
vision for the continuance of a gospel | down to a third generation of Christian 


ministry upon earth. 


If he do not enact | teachers in the church. 


He ordained 


the mode of succession for all ages, he at! Timothy to this office, who was also to 





* A Sermon preached in St. George’s church, Edinburgh, before the Society for the daughtere 


of the clergy, in May, 1829. 


310 


ordain others—which last, we may well 
conjecture, were not only to minister, but 
in their turn to ordain ministers who 
might come after them. It must be ac- 
knowledged, however, that there is mar- 
vellously little of express enactment in 
Scripture for an ecclesiastical constitution ; 
and that this fertile controversy chiefly 
turns upon apostolical example, and the 
lights of ecclesiastical history—thus leav- 
ing it more in the shape of an indeter- 
minate or discretionary question, and to 
be decided by considerations of expedien- 
cy——a term, which, in the Christian sense 
of the word, is of far loftier bearing than 
in the vulgar sense of it—as pointing, not 
to what makes most for the good of self 
or the good of society, but as pointing to 
what makes most for the prosperity of 
religion in the world, for the exten- 
sion and the glory of our Redeemer’s 
kingdom. Expediency, wherewith we 
commonly associate a certain character 
of sordidiess, instantly acquires a sacred- 
ness of character, when its objects are 
thus made sacred; and its high aim is 
more thoroughly to Christianize a land, 
and to ensure a fuller and more frequent 
circulation of the gospel among its fami- 
lies. 

Now there is one question of ecclesias- 
tical polity, which, in the lack of aught 
in the New Testament that is very distinct 
or authoritative upon the subject, we 
should feel much inclined to decide upon 
this ground—we mean the question of a 
teligious establishment. The truth is, 
that Christianity, for three centuries, was 
left to find its own way in the world—for 
during the whole of that period, none of 
this world’s princes did it reverence. All 
this time, it was treated as an unprotected 
outcast, or rather as a branded criminal. 
Yet the execrable superstition, as it was 
then called, neither withered under neg- 
lect, nor was quelled by the hand of per- 
secuting violence. It grew and gathered 
into strength, under the terrible processes 
that were devised for its annihilation. 
Disgrace could not overbear it. ‘Threats 
could not terrify it. Imprisonment could 
not stifle it. Exile could not rid the 
world of it, or chase the nuisance away. 
The fires of bloody martyrdom could not 
extinguish it. They could not all prevail 
against a religion, which had the blessing 
of heaven upon its head, and in its bosom 


ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 


SERM, 


the silent energies of conviction. And so 
it spread and multiplied among men. 
And, signal triumph of principle over 
power, of the moral over the sentient and 
the grossly physical! was the indestruc- 
tible church nurtured into might and mag- 
nitude, and settled more firmly on its basis, 
amid the various elements which had 
conspired for its overthrow. Throughout 
the whole transition—from the time that 
the fishermen of Galilee tended its infan 
cy, to the time that the Emperors of 
Rome did homage to its wondrous man- 
hood—it had neither the honours nor the 
revenues of an establishment. This 
change did not, and could not, originate 
with the ecclesiastical. It originated with 
the civil authority. It took effect by the 
state holding out to the church the right 
hand of fellowship. The advance was 
made by the former; and we should hold 
it tantamount to the vindication of a reli- 
gious establishment, could we demon- 
strate, how, without the compromise of 
principle, but rather in obedience to its 
purest and highest behests, the advance 
might be met and consented to by the 
latter. * 

Let me suppose then a society of Chris 
tians, great or small, actuated, as Mora 
vians now are, by the spirit and zeal of 
devoted missionaries—pressed in con- 
science by the obligation of our Saviout’s 
last saying, “ Go and preach the gospel 
to every creature”——bent on an expedition 
to the heathen of distant lands, if they 
had but an opening for the voyage and 
the means of defraying it. Hitherto, it 
will be admitted, that all is purely apos- 
tolical ; and that, as yet, no violence has 
been done to the high and heaven-born 
sanctities of the gospel. Now what we 
ask is, whether there be aught to vitiate 
this holy character, in the next indispen- 
sable step of the means being provided ; 
of money being raised, for the essential 
hire and maintenance of the labourers ; 
of the vessel being equipped, that is to 
bear them onward in this errand of piety; 
of the wealth being transferred to their 
hands from the hands of willing contribu- 
tors, for the support of the missionary 
household, for the erection of the mission- 
ary church and missionary dwelling-pla- 
ces. Is there aught of earthly contamina-: 
tion in this? Isthe Unitas Fratrum, that 
chuzch of spiritual men, at all brought 


XXXVI] 


down from its saintliness, by those annu- 
al supplies, without which their perils 
among the heathen could not have been 
encountered—their deeds of Christian he- 
roism could not have been performed ? 
They maintain their own independence 
as a church notwithstanding. Their doc- 
trines and discipline and mode of worship, 
are left untouched by the proceeding. In 
all matters ecclesiastical, they take their 
own way. It is true they are subsisted 
by others; but in no one article, relating 
to the church’s peculiar business, are they 
controlled by them. They are maintain- 
ed from without; but they need not, be- 
cause of this, suffer one taint of desecra- 
tion. within. There is a connexion, no 
doubt, established between two parties; 
but I can see nothing in it, save a pecu- 
niary succour rendered upon one side, 
and a high service of philanthropy render- 
ed upon the other—yet rendered accord- 
ing to the strict methods, and in rigid 
conformity with the most sacred princi- 
ples of those who are embarked on this 
high and holy vocation. The transac- 
tion, as we now relate it, is of purest ori- 
gin; and has been nobly accredited by 
the blessed consequences which have fol- 
lowed in its train—for by means of these 
_hireling labourers, the out-posts of Chris- 
tianity have been pushed forward to the 
very outskirts of the human population ; 
Christian villages have been reared in 
the farthest. wilds of Paganism ; the prow- 
ling savages of Greenland and Labrador 
have been reclaimed to the habits and the 
decencies of civilized life; and, greater 
far than any bliss or beauty which can be 
made to irradiate this fleeting pilgrimage, 
successive thousands of before untaught 
idolaters (under the effective tuition that 
has been brought to bear upon them) 
have lived in the obedience, and died in 
the triumphs, of the faith. 

Now the essential character of this 
whole transaction is the same—whether 
we conceive these gospel-labourers to be 
employed in the business of a home, or in 
the business of a foreign mission. By 
the one process, you carry the lessons of 
our religion beyond ; by the other you 
circulate them within the territory of 
Christendom. The effect of the one is to 
spread Christianity externally abroad, 
and so perhaps as to sprinkle many na- 
tions. The effect of the other is to fill 


ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 


» 


311 


up the internal vacancies, and so pethaps 
as thoroughly to saturate with Christian- 
ity one nation. It is not enough reflect- 
ed on, that, under the latter process, a 
vastly greater number of human spirits 
may be medicated into spiritual and im- 
mortal health, than under the former ; 
and, at all events, that this latter also 
must have its accomplishment—ere the 
knowledge of the Lord shall fill the earth 
even as the waters, which, in their col- 
lapse admit of no internal vacancy, cover 
the sea. But the position which I chiefly 
want to fix at present is, that, whether 
the missionary movement be in an out- 
ward or in a homeward direction, its 
whole economy and character may re- 
main essentially the same. The enter- 
prise may be supported in its expenses by 
one party. It may be executed in its 
work and labour by another party. Each 
may be distinct of the other, and give no 
disturbance to the other. The secular 
men may provide the means ; yet the ec- 
clesiastical men, in their proper depart- 
ment, may have the entire and uncoutrol- 
led management. They may take their 
support from others in things temporal ; 
yet suffer no invasion by them, on their 
inviolable prerogative of determining and 
ordering in things spiritual. ‘Their main- 
tenance cometh from others; but their 
worship, and their creed, and their formu-: 
laries, and their sacraments, and their: 
ministrations, both of word and of ordi- 
nances, are all their own. We yet see 
no compromise of principle in such a con- 
nexion as this. There is support given 
upon the one side. But there is no sur- 
render, in the least article either of faith 
or holiness, made upon the other side. 
The only submission that we can perceive 
on the part of these missionaries or min- 
isters to other men, is a submission to be 
fed by them; and that, that they might 
wait without distraction on the business 
of their own unshackled and uncontrolled 
ministry. In this instance then, as in the 
former, there is the like pure origin, and 
there may be a like or perhaps a surpass-" 
ingly-glorious result. If by the foreign 
mission, stations are planted along the 
margin of our peopled earth——by the 
home mission stations may be multiplied 
over the territory of owr own land. If, 
as the effect of the one, we now behold 


‘villages of peace and piety in the distan 


312 


wilderness—as the effect of the other, the 
moral wilderness around us may be light- 
ed up and fertilized ; and we may be 
made to witness both a holier Sabbath 
and purer week-days than heretofore, in 
all our parishes. If, in virtue of the mis- 
sionary doings abroad, we read that hun- 
dreds of families in some before untrod- 
den field of heathenism have been Chris- 
tianized—let us not forget, that many are 
the cities of our own island, where, with- 
ont ene mile of locomotion, we might 
have converse with thousands of families, 
which, but for the same doings at home, 
would be sunk in the apathy and the 
grossness of practical heathenism. If, as 
the fruit of the one service, we can appeal 
to humanized savages, and rudest wander- 
ers of the desert, transformed into Chris- 
tian and companionxble men—let not the 
splendour of this achievement eclipse the 
equal importance of the other service, if 
we can appeal to an effectiveness as 
mighty and momentous, in our own cot- 
tage patriarchs, our own virtuous and 
well-taught peasantry. 

Now, we think it is not by a fanciful, 
but by a sound generalization, that we 
pass from the case of a home mission, to 
that ofan establishment—which is neither 
more nor less, in fact, than a universal 
home mission. At its first institution, in 
the days of Constantine, the very work 
remained to be done, which we have now 
specified. Its proper object, is not to ex- 
tend Christianity into ulterior spaces, but 
thoroughly to fill up the space that had 
been already occupied. It is a far migh- 
tier achievement than may appear at first 
view, completely to overtake the whole 
length and breadth of a land. All the 
itineracies and the traverse movements of 
the many thousand missionaries, who, 
during the three first centuries, lived and 
died in the cause, fell short of this accom- 
plishment. They did much in the work 
of spreading the gospel externally ; but 
they left much undone in the work of 
spreading it internally. They had Chris- 
tianized the thousands who lived in cities ; 


but the millions of pagans, or of peasantry, | 


who were yet unconverted, evince the 
country to have been every where a great 
moral fastness, which, till opened up by 
an establishment, would remain impreg- 
nab.e. Now this very opening was pre- 


ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 











ISERM, 


the Roman Emperor, whether by a move- 
ment of faith, or a movement.of philan- 
thropy and patriotism, made territorial dis- 
tribution of these over his kingdoms and 
provinces; and assigning a territorial 
revenue for the labourers of this exten- 
sive vineyard, enabled each to set himself 
down in his own little vicinity—the fami- 
lies of which he could assemble to the 
exercises of Christian piety on the Sab- 
bath, and among whom he could expa- 
tiate through the week in all the offices 
and attentions of Christian kindness. 
Such an offer, whether Christianly or 
but politically made upon the one side, 
could most Christianly be accepted and 
recjoiced in by the other. It extended 
inconceivably the powers and the oppor- 
tunities of usefulness. It brought the 
gospel of Jesus Christ into contact with 
myriads more of imperishable spirits ; 
and with as holy a fervour as ever glad- 
dened the heart of the devoted missionary, 
when the means of an ampler service to 
the Redeemer’s cause were put into his 
hands, might the church in these days 
have raised to heaven its orisons of purest 
gratitude, that kings at length had become 
its nursing fathers, and opened up to it the 
plenteous harvest of all their population. 
There is just as little of the essentially cor- 
rupt in this connexion between the church 
and the state, as there is in the connexion be- 
tween a missionary board and its pecuniary 
supporters. Each is a case of the Earth 
helping the Woman ; but, whatever of 
earthliness may be upon the one side, there 
might benone, and there needs be none, up- 
on the other. The one may assist in things 
temporal—while the other may continue 
to assert its untouched and entire jurisdic- 
tion, as heretofore, in things spiritual. 
There might thus be an alliance between 
the Altar and the Throne—yet without 
the feculence of any earthly intermixture 
being at all engendered by it. The state 
avails itself of the church’s services ; and 
the church gives back again no other 
than the purest services of the sanctuary. 
Its single aim, as heretofore, is the pre- 
paration of citizens for heaven; but, in 
virtue of the blessings which Christianity 
scatters on its way, do the princes of this 
world find that these are the best citizens 
of earth—and that the cheap defence of 
nations, the best safeguard of their pros- 


sented to the ministers of Christ, when! perity and their power, is a universal 


FXXVIL| 


Christian education. There needs be 
nought, we repeat, of contamination in 
this. ‘he state pays the church; yet 
the church, in the entire possession of all 
‘hose privileges and powers which are 
strictly ecclesiastical, maintains the in- 
tegrity of her faith and worship notwith- 
standing, She might be the same hal- 
lowed church, as when the fires of mar- 
tyrdomn were blazing ‘around her—the 
same spitituality among her ministers— 
the same lofty independence in all her 
pulpits. The effect of an establishment 
is not necessarily to corrupt Christianity, 
but to extend it—not necessarily to vitiate 
the ministrations of the gospel, but cer- 
tainly to disseminate those ministrations 
more intimately amongst, as well as to 
bear them more diffusively abroad over 
the families of the land. 

But just as in philosophy and politics, 
there are mistakes upon this subject of a 
religious establishment, from the very 
common error of not assigning the right 
effect to its right cause. ‘There is a kind 
of vague and general imagination, as if 
corruption were the invariable accom- 
paniment of such an alliance between the 
civil and the ecclesiastical ; and this has 
been greatly fostered, by the tremendously 
corrupt Popery, which followed in his- 
torical succession after the establishment 
of Christianity in the days of Constan- 
tine, and which certainly holds out, in 
vivid contrast, the difference between this 
religion in the period of its suffering, and 
this religion in the period of its security 
and triumph. But it were well to dis- 
criminate the precise origin of this fright- 
ful degeneracy. It arose not from with- 
out; it arose from within. It was not 
because. of any ascendency by the state 
over the church whom it now paid, and 
thereby trenched upon its independence 
in things spiritual. It was because of an 
ascendency by the church over the state, 
the effect of that superstitious terror 
which it wielded over the imaginations 
of men, and which it most unworthily 
prostituted to the usurpation of power in 
things temporal. 

The fear that many have of an establish- 
ment, is, lest through it, the state should 
obtain too great power over the church, 
and so be able to graft its own secularity, 
or its own spirit of worldliness, on the 
pure system of the gospel,—whereas the 


ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 


3.3 


actual mischief of Popery, lay in the 
church having obtained too great power 
over the state ; and in the false doctrines 


which it devised, to strengthen and _per- 


petuate a temporal dominion which should 
never have been permitted to it. There 
is no analogy between the apprehended 
evils of Christianity from an establishment 
now-a-days, and the actual evils inflicted 
on Christianity by the corrupt and auda- 
cious hierarchy of Rome. The thing 
dreaded from that connexion between the 
church and state which an establishment 
implies, is lest the state, stepping beyond 
its own legitimate province, should make 
invasion upon the church ; and so, by a 
heterogeneous ingredient from without, in 
some way adulterate the faith. ‘I'he 
thing experienced, on the contrary, was 
that the church, stepping beyond its le- 
gitimate province, made an invasion upon 
the state, and all the adulteration prac- 
tised, either on the worship or the lessons 
of Christianity, was gendered from within. > 
So far from the state having too much 
power, so that it could make unlawful in- 
vasion on the church—it had too little 
power, so that it could not resist the un- 
lawful invasion made by the church upon 
itself The theoretical fear is, lest the 
state should meddle with the prerogatives 
of the church; the historical fact is, that 
the church meddled with the prerogative 
of the state. So far from the apprehend- 
ed corruption having experience to rest 
upon, it is precisely the reverse—of the 
actual corruption. But the truth is, that, 
after many conflicts, the matter is now 
better understood ; and the understanding 
is, that neither should meddle with the 
prerogatives of the other. The state may 
pay the church; yet without conceding 
to it one particle of temporal sovereignty. 
The church may serve the state; yet 
without the surrender of one spiritual pre- 
rogative. ‘T'o teach the people Christian- 
ity—that is the church’s service. ‘T'o 
teach them no other than what itself 
judges to be the Christianity of the Bi- 
ble—that is the church’s prerogative. 
To deal out among our parish families 
the lessons of faith and of holiness—this 
is the church’s incumbent duty. But that 
these shall be no other than what itself 
judges to be the very lessons of that 
Scripture whose guidance in things spiri- 
tual it exclusively follows, and that in this 


314 


judgment no power on earth shall con- 
trol it,—this is the church’s inviolable 
privilege. The state might maintain a 
scholastic establishment; but, without 
charging itself with the methods of ordi- 
nary education, leave these to the teach- 
ers. Or the state might maintain an ec- 
clesiastical establishment; but, without 
charging itself with the methods of Chris- 


tian education, leave these to the church.. 


In both cases it would multiply and ex- 
tend over the land the amount of instruc- 
tion. Yet the kind of instruction it 
might leave to other authorities, to other 
boards of management than its own; and 
this were the way to secure the best 
scholarship, and the best Christianity. 
For the sake of an abundant gospel dis- 
pensation, we are upheld in things tem- 
poral by the state. For the sake of a 
pure gospel dispensation, we are left in 
things spiritual to ourselves ; and on our- 
selves; and on ourselves alone does it 
depend, whether the church now might 
not be the same saintly and unsullied 
church, that it was in the days of martyr- 
dom—as spiritual in its creed, as purely 
apostolic in its spirit, as holy in all its 
services, 

We will not allege the infallibility of 
our own church ; for this were Popery 
though in the dress of Protestantism. We 
will not contend for the wisdom and the 
rectitude of all its doings; for we hold 
that there is neither individual nor corpo- 
rate perfection upon the earth. But let 
the distinction be made between the acts 
of an establishment and the powers of an 
establishment; and we know not, if, 
through the whole of Christendom, there 
be one more happily devised in any other 
country for the religious good of its pop- 


ulation. ‘The fitness of a machine is one 
thing ; the working of it is another. We 


feel as if it were no more than a warrant- 
able confidence, when we stand up for 
the former—though we should feel it a 
most tremendous presumption, did we, in 
every instance and upon all occasions, 
stand up for the latter. In regard to the 
fitness of the mechanism, it may be the 
best possible. In regard to the actual 
working of the mechanism, one would 
need to side with all the majorities which 
have occurred for two centuries, and 
under all the changes of ecclesiastical 
policy, ere he could conscientiously af- 


ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 


[SERM. 


firm, that it has at all times been the best 
possible. Still, amid all the imputations 
and the errors which its greatest enemies 
may have laid to its door, we hold, that, — 
upon the alternative of its existence or 
non-existence, there would hang a most 
fearful odds to the Christianity of Scot- 
land. Let us admit it as true, that the 
apparatus might be made greatly more 
effective,—still it’is true that a deadly 
effect would follow, and be felt to her re- 
motest parishes, were the apparatus taken 
down. It were tantamount to a moral 
blight over the length and breadth of our 
land; and though we have not time to 
demonstrate, what now we have only 
time to affirm—yet, with all the certainty 
of experimental demonstration we say it. 
that the ministrations of our church then 
done away would never be replaced, to 
within a tenth of their efficacy, by all the 
zeal and energy and talent of private ad- 
venturers. ‘Phere would arise no com- 
pensation for the present regular supply. 
‘There would arise no compensation for 
its fulness. Instead of the frequent Par. 
ish Church (that most beauteous of al 
spectacles to a truly Scottish heart, be- 
cause to him the richest in moral associ- 
ation ; and to whom therefore its belfrey, 
peeping forth from among the thick ver- 
dure of the trees which embosom it, is 
the sweetest and the fairest object in the 
landscape)— instead of this, we should be- 
hold the bare and thinly-scattered meet. 
ing-houses. For the large intervening 
spaces, we should have nothing but pre- 
carious and transcient itinerancies to trust 
to. The well established habit of Sab- 
bath attendance, now as constant with 
many of our families as the weekly re- 
currence of the parish bell, would necces- 
sarily disappear. In a moral sense, they 
would become the waste and the howling 
wildernesses of Scotland. We feel quite 
assured, that, under this withering de- 
privation, a hard and outlandish aspect 
would gather on the face of our people. 
The cities might be somewhat served as 
heretofore, but the innumerable hamlets 
would be forsaken; and, just as it was 
anterior to an establishment at all, our 
peasants would again become Pagans, or, 
under the name and the naked ritual of 
Christianity, would sink into the blind. 
ness and the brutality and the sad aliena- 
tion of Paganism. 


XXXVII.] ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 315 


But, without enlarging on this con-|that is no reason why it should be 
sideration, in which however there lies | brought to dissolution. There is corrup- 
much of the strength of our cause, let us | tion in the municipal government of our 
briefly recur to the leading argument of | towns—yet what fearful anarchy would 
the day. It is not true that corruption | ensue, should that be made the pretext for 
must adhere, in virtue of its very nature | another overthrow; and every populous 
and as by necessity, to an establishment. | community in our land were left without 
There will be corruption in fact; but!a presiding magistracy to check and to 
rightly to estimate the quarter it comes; control them. There is corruption, we 
from, distinction should be made between | will say it, in every family government 
the nature of the institution and the nature | throughout the nation—yet who can tell 
of man. In virtue of the former, there | the numerous ills that would fester in 
may be no contamination ; while in virtue | every household, and flow over in innu- 
of the latter, there may be a great deal. |; merable streams upon society, were the 
An establishment may in this case be the | rights and the restraints of parental au- 
occasional, but not the efficient cause of | thority therefore put an end to? And 
mischief. The machine may be fault-| there may be corruption in the ecclesias- 
less ; but exposed, as it must be, while | tical government of our own church. 
the species lasts, to the intromission of | T'his may be true, and yet it be just as 
hands, which to a certain degree will/|true, that if, either by tne policy of in- 
taint and vitiate all that they come in con- | fatuated rulers or by the frenzy of an in- 
tact with. The remedy is not to demol-| fatuated people, this church were swept 
ish the machine, and transfer the hands | away—it would inflict a most deleterious 
which wrought it to other managements | blow on the character of Scotland and 
and other modes of operation—There|the Christianity of Scotland’s families. 
will still be corruption notwithstanding. | It is not by the violence of public hos- 
It will prove a vain attempt at escape, if | tility against our church that the nation 
you think to make it good by transferring | 1s to be reformed—it is rather by the con- 
human nature from the economy of an / trol of the public opinion upon her minis- 
establishment to the economy of any of | ters; and most of all, by the answer from 
our sectaries. ‘The human nature which | Heaven to the people’s prayers, that her 
you thus transfer, will carry its own virus | priests may be clothed with salvation. 
along with it; and, while that nature re-| Were the establishment, and that, too, 
mains there will be corruption in both,| under the pretext of its corruption, de- 
and which is strictly chargeable neither | stroyed—this would do nothing, and 
on the one economy nor on the other.} worse than nothing. Were the establish- 
It follows not therefore, because of this| ment, either.in the whole, or in certain 
one or that other abuse, that the frame-| parts of its constitution reformed—this, 
work of our establishment should be} of itself, would do little; and so little, as 
destroyed. ‘I'o make head against an | to stamp insignificance on many a contest 
abuse, we should direct our efforts to the | of ecclesiastical policy. Were the es- 
place where the abuse originated—not to | tablishment to have the Spirit of God 
the machinery therefore in the present} poured forth upon its clergy—then, with 
instance but to the men who work the} the multiplication of its churches and 
machinery. It is not to a constitutional| parishes made more commensurate to 
or political change in any of our establish- | the wants of our increasing population— 
ments, that we should look for the coming | this, and this alone, would do every thing. 
regeneration of our land. It is to a} A conscientious minister, even with the 
moral and spiritual change in those who | establishment precisely as it is, has within 
administer them. It is there, and not in| its borders, the liberty and the privilege 
the framework, where the change and) of unbounded usefulness. He has scope 
the correction ought to be made. ‘This | and outlet there, for the largest desires of 
is the way by which to get rid of corrup-| Christian philanthropy. He nas a parish 
tion, and not by putting forth upon our! within which he might multiply his 
national institutions the innovating hand | assiduities at pleasure ; and with no other 
of adestroyer. There is corruption in| control, but of the word of God over his 
the civil government of our empire—yet| doctrines, and his services and_ his 





316 


prayers. Should he quarrel with the 
reigning pslicy of our church, he has a 
place for the utterance of his testimony, 
against all he might esteem to be its de- 
fections and its errors. He can give his 
eloquence and his vote to the strength of 
its minorities. He can, by the contribu- 
tion of his own name, and of his own 
proclaimed or recorded opinion, add to 
the moral force which always lies in an 
opposition of principle, and which num- 
bers cannot overbear. All this he may 
do, and without forfeiting the respect, nay 
even the kindness, of his adversaries. 
But to go back from the courts of our es- 
tablishinent to its parishes, where after 
all he is on his best vantage-ground for 
the services of Christian patriotism, he 
can there expatiate without restraint in 
all the deeds and the devices of highest 
usefulness. It is on this precious home- 
walk of piety and peace, that he can ac- 
quit himself of his noblest ministrations 
for the interests of our immortal nature, 
and the good of human society. It is 
there where he sheds the purest influences 
around him, whether by the holiness of 
his pulpit or the kindness of his house- 
hold ministrations. I cannot imagine a 
stronger yet happier ascendant, than that 
which belongs to a parish minister, who, 
throned in the cordialities of his people, 
finds unbounded welcome at every cot- 
tage door; and by his unwearied atten- 
tion at sicknesses, and deaths, and fune- 
rals, has implicated the very sound of his 
name and idea of his person with the 
dearest interests of families. We posi- 
tively know not, if any where else than 
under this mild patriarchal economy, a 
scene of so much moral loveliness can be 
found—or one where the hopes of heaven, 
and the best and kindest affections of 
earth, are so beautifully blended to up- 
hold a system which covers all the land 
with so bland and benignant an economy 
as this, may well be termed the cheap 
defence of the nation. To uproot it, is 
the Gothic imagination of certain unfeel- 
ing calculators, whose sole principle, in 
the science of their politics, is a heartless 
arithmetic ; but who, in the midst of their 
plodding computations, have overlooked 
what that is which constitutes the chief 
element of a nation’s prosperity and a 
nation’s greatness, 

It is our part to vindicate the worth 


ON RELIGIJUUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 


—————————Keq—oe oor ume ress ee eee 


[SERM. 


and importance of a church establish- 
ment to society ; and this is best done by 
the worth and importance of our services. - 
This will form our best security, infinite- 
ly better than any which statesmen can 
devise. There were certain recent alarms 
in which [ could not participate, because 
I felt that any apprehended danger from 
without, might be greatly more than 
counteracted by a moral defence from 
within. ‘his is the reaction by which 
we have hitherto stood our ground 
against infidelity. on the one hand anc 
sectarianism on the other; and with such 
an effect, that, with enough of energy and 
conscientiousness and enlightened zeal on 
the part of her ministers, all the menaces 
and agitation by which we are surround- 
ed, will only rivet the Church of Scotiand 
more firmly upon her basis, and rally 
more closely around her cause the wise 
and the good of our nation. 

In regard to an establishment, it makes 
all the difference in the world to a consci- 
entious man, whether it exposes the 
church to the evil of an overbearing con- 
straint from without; or, im common 
with every other Christian society, to the 
evil of a spontaneous corruption from 
within its own bosom. If not to the for- 
mer, he may carry entire into the estab- 
lishment, all his powers and his liberty 
of usefulness. If only to the latter, he 
may personally have no share in the cor- 
ruption; and politically, if such be the 
constitution of the church that he is vest- 
ed with the privilege, he may resist, and 
if overcome, may lift his testimony against 
it. In all these respects, we know of no- 
thing more perfect than the constitution 
of the Church of Scotland. There is, to 
each of its members, an independent voice 
from within; and from without there is 
no force or authority whatever in matters 
ecclesiastical. They who feel dislike to 
an establishment, do so in general because 
of their recoil from all contract and com- 
munication with the state. We have no 
other communication with the state than 
that of being maintained by it—after 
which we are left to regulate the proceed- 
ings of our great home mission, with all 
the purity and the piety and the independ- 
ence of any missionary board. We are 
exposed to nothing from without, which 
can violate the sanctity of the apostolical 
character, if ourselves do not violate it. 


And neither are we exposed to aught, 
which can trench on tne authority of the 
apostolical office, if ourselves we make 
no surrender of it. In things ecclesiasti- 
cal we decide all. Some of these things 
may be done wrong; but still they are 
our majorities which do it. They are 
not, they cannot, be forced upon us from 
without. We own no head of the church 
but the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever is 
done ecclesiastically is done by our min- 
isters, acting in His name, and in profest 
submission to His authority. Implicated 
as the church and the state are imagined 
‘o be, they are not so implicated, as that, 
without the concurrence of the ecclesiasti- 
cal courts, a full and final effect can be 
given to any proceeding, by which the 
good of Christianity and the religion of 
our people may be affected. There is 
not a clerical appointment, which can 
take place in any of our parishes, till we 
have sustained it. Even the law of pat- 
_Tonage, right or wrong, is in force not by 
the power of the state, but by the permis- 
sion of the church; and, with all its fan- 
cied omnipotence, has no other basis than 
that of our majorities to rest upon. It 
should never be forgotten, that, in things 
ecclesiastical, the highest power of our 
church is amenable to no higher power 
on earth for its decisions. It can exclude, 
it can deprive, it can depose at pleasure. 
External force might make an o®noxious 
individual the holder of a benefice; but 
there is no external force in these realms, 
that could make him a minister of the 
Church of Scotland. There is not one 
thing which the state can do to our inde- 
pendent and indestructible church, but 
strip her of its temporalities. “ Nec tamen 
consumebatur,’ she would remain a 
church notwithstanding—stronger than 
ever, in the props of her own moral and 
inherent greatness; and, at least strong 
as ever, in the reverence of her country’s 
population—she was as much a church 
in her days of suffering, as in her days of 
outward security and triumph—when a 
wandering outcost, with nought but the 
mountain breezes to play around her, and 
nought but the caves of the earth to shel- 
ter her, as now when admitted to the 
bowers of an establishment. ‘The magis- 
trate might withdraw his protection ; and 
she cease to be an establishment any 
onger—but in all the high matters of sa- 


ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, 


317 


|cred and spiritual jurisdiction, she would 
| be the same as before. With or without 
an establishment, she, in these, is the un- 
fettered mistress of her doings. The 
King by himself, or by his representative, 
might be a looker-on ; but more, the King 
cannot, the King dare not. 

But we gladly bring our argument to 
a close. It has been well remarked, that 
in the abstract discussion of rights be 
tween which there may be collision, it is 
difficult to avoid a certain tone of harsh- 
ness—a spirit the most unlike possible to 
that which should be, and indeed to that 
which actually is, in real and living ex- 
emplification. The vindication of our 
establishment, as far as we have proceed- 
ed in it, necessarily involves the vindica- 
tion of our order from the charge—that, 
because supported by the state, we are 
therefore as if by necessary consequence, 
a mean and mercenary priesthood. In 
repelling this, we cannot but assert the 
real independence which belong to us; 
but let not the assertion of our independ- 
ence be interpreted into an assertion of 
disrespect or defiance. What we say’ 
and say truly in the abstract, may in the 
concrete be never realized; and for this 
best and most desirable of all reasons, that 
the one party might never be put on the 
hardy and resolute defence of its prerog- 
ative, just because the other party may 
never have the wish or the thought to in- 
vade it. ‘There is many an ancient and 
venerable possession in our land, whose 
rights are never called forth from their 
depository, or produced in court—just be- 
cause they are never trampled on. And 
so of the rights of our church—there 
| might be no call for the parade or for the 
production of them, just because there 
might be no contest; and we are left to 
ithe undisturbed exercise of every power 
which legitimately belongs to us. It is 
thus that for centuries, nay for a whole 
millennium, we can imagine a prosper- 
ous and a pacific union, between the 
church on the one hand and the state 
upon the uther—a union most fruitful in 
blessings to both—the church rendering 
to the state that most precious of all servr 
ces, the rearing of a virtuous and orderly 
and loyal population ; and the state giv- 
ing tenfold extent and efficacy to the la- 
bours of the church, by multiplying an’ 
upholding its stations all over the lands, 





318 


and providing it in fact with approaches 
to the door of every family. There 
is here no compromise of sound principle 
on the part of the church—for it is not in 
drivelling submission to the authority of 
man, it is in devout submission to the 
high authority of Heaven, that we tell 
owt people to honour the king, to obey 
magistrates, to lead a quiet and peaceable 
life in all godliness and honesty, and 
meddle not with them who are given 
to change. Neither is there any com- 
promise of sound policy on the part of 


ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 


[SERM. 


the state—for the Christian education of 
the people, is the high road to all the best . 
objects of patriotism. In such an inter- 
course of benefits as this, there needs not, 
we repeat it, be so much as a taint of 
worldliness. We may retain entire our 
apostolic fervour and our apostolic sim- 
plicity notwithstanding—pure as in the 
season of our most dark and trying 
ordeals—equally pure in the sunshine of 
blandness and cordiality, between a Chris- 
tian church and an enlightened Govern- 
ment. 


SERMON XXXVIII. 


On the Honour due to all Men. 


‘‘ Honour all men.—-Honour the king.”—1 Peter. ii. 17. 


To honour all men is alike the lesson 
of Philosophy and Religion. He who 
studies Humanity, not according to its 
accidental distinctions in society, but in 
its great and general characteristics—he 
who looks to its moral nature as a piece 
of curious and interesting mechanism, all 
whose processes are as accurately exem- 
plified in the mind of the poorest indi- 
vidual, as the laws or the constructions 
of anatomy are in his body—he whose 
office it is to contemplate the fabric of its 
principles and powers, and who can re- 
cognise even in humble life the goodliest 
specimens of both—with him the distinc- 
tions of rank are apt to be lost and forgot- 
ten, in the homage which he renders to 
man, simply as the possessor of a consti- 
tution that has so often exercised and re- 
galed his faculties as an object of liberal 
curiosity. The homeliest peasant bears 
within the confines of his inner man, that 
very tablet on the lines and characters of 
which the highest philosopher may for 
years perhaps have been most intensely 
gazing. All the secrets of our wondrous 
economy are deposited there ; and, in the 
heart even of the most unletiered man, 
‘he memory, and the understanding, and 
the imagination, and the conscience, and 
every other function and property of the 
yet inaccessible soul are all in busy oper- 
ation. ‘Tio the owner of such an unex- 


plored microcosm, we attach somewhat 
of the same reverence which we enter- 
tain for some profound and hidden mys- 
tery—and he who has laboured most 
anxiously to seize upon the mysteries of 
our nature, and therefore feels most pro- 
foundly how deep and how inscrutable 
they are, he perbaps is the most predis- 
posed by his pursuits and his habits to 
* honour all men.” 

Somewhat of the same sentiment is 
impressed upon us in the midst of a crowd 
—or as we pass along that street which 
is alive from morning to night with its 
endless flow of passengers. We are 
aware of no contemplation, that is more 
fitted to annihilate in one’s own mind the 
importance of self; or rather to multiply 
this feeling, and make it be transferred by 
us to each individual of that restless and 
eager population by whom we are sur- 
rounded. To think of each having with- 
in the precincts of his own bosom, a 
chamber of thoughts and purposes, and 
fond imaginations as warm and teeming 
as our own, and of the busy history that 
is going on there; that every one of the 
immense multitude is the centre of his 
own distinct amphitheatre, which, how- 
ever unknown to us, is the universe to 
him; that each meditative countenance 
of the vast and interminable number be- 
speaks a play of hopes, and wishes, and 


XXXVII.] 


interests within, in every way as active, 
and felt to be of as great magnitude and 
urgency, as we experience in ourselves 
—further to think that should my own 
heart cease its palpitations, and were the 
light of my own wakeful spirit to be ex- 
tinguished for ever, that still there would 
be a world as full of life and intelligence 
as before; to think of myself as an un- 
missed or unnoticed thing among the 
myriads who are around me, or rather to 
think that with each of these myriads 
there are desires as vivid, and sensibilities 
-as deep, and cares as engrossing, and 
social or family affections as tender, as 
those which I carry about with me in 
that little world to which no one eye hath 


access but the eye of my own conscious- 


ness—there is a humility that ought to 
be impressed by such a contemplation ; 
or, if it do not utterly abase the reckoning 


that we have of ourselves, it ought at 


least to exalt our reckoning of all other 
men, and teach us to hold in honour those, 
who in the workings of the same nature 
and fellowship of the very same interests 
so thoroughly partake with us. 

It is true, that, in what may be called 
the outward magnitude of these interests, 
there is a wide distance between a sover- 
eign and his subject—between the cares 
of an empire, and the cares of a small 
household economy. That is, the em- 
pire externally speaking is greater than 
the household—while inwardly the cares, 
the cogitations, the sensibilities of the 
heart, whether oppressive or joyful, may 
be altogether the same. They be a dif- 
ferent set of objects, wherewith the 
monarch is conversant, and that keep in 
play the system of his thoughts and emo- 
tions, just as it is upon a different sort of 
food that his blood circulates or that his 
physical system is upholden. But as the 
peasant is like to him in respect of anato- 
my, So, with all the diversity of circum- 
stances, he is substantially like to him, in 
the frame and mechanism of his spirit. 
The outward causes by which each is 
excited are vastly different; but the in- 
ward excitement of both is the same— 
and, could we explore the little world 
that is in each of the two bosoms, we 
should recognise in each the same busy 
rotation of hopes and fears, and wishes 
and anxieties. If it be indeed a just cal- 
culation, that there is a superiority, a sur- 


ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 


319 


passing worth in the moral which far 
outweighs the material, then, let the cot- 
tage be as widely dissimilar from the 
palace as it may, there is a similarity be- 
tween their inhabitants, not in that which 
is minute, but in that which is momentous 
—and our weightiest arguments for hon- 
ouring the king bear with efficacy upon 
the lesson, to honour all men. 

And moreover, let us but rate the im- 
portance of one thinking and living spirit, 
when compared with all the mute and 
unconscious materialism which is in-our 
universe. Without such a spirit, the 
whole of visible existence were but an 
idle waste—a nothingness—for what is 
beauty were there no eye to look upon it, 
and what is music were there no ear to 
listen, and what is matter in all its rich 
and wondrous varieties without a specta- 
tor mind to be regaled by the contempla- 
tion of them? One might conceive the 
very panorama that now surrounds us— 
the same earth and sea and skies that we 
now look upon—the same graces on the 
face of terrestrial nature, the same rolling 
wonders in the firmament—yet withcut 
one spark of thought or animation 
throughout the unpeopled amplitude. 
This in effect were nonentity. To put 
out all the consciousness that is in nature 
were tantamount to the annihilation of na- 
ture; and the lighting up again. of but 
one mind in the midst of this desolation, 
would of itself restore significancy to the 
scene, and be more than equivalent to 
the first creation of it. In other words, 
one living mind is of more worth than a 
dead universe—or there is that in every 
single peasant to which I owe sublimer 
homage, than, if untenanted of mind, I 
should yield to all the wealth of this low- 
er world, to all those worlds that roll in 
spaciousness and in splendour through 
the vastnesses of astronomy. 

Our Saviour Himself hath instituted 
the comparison between a world and 
a soul—and, whether both were alike 
perishable or alike enduring, His esti- 
mate of the soul’s superiority would hold. 
He founds his computation on our brief ten- 
ure of all that is earthly, and on the mag- 
nitude of those abiding interests which 
wait the immortal spirit in other scenes 
of existence. All men are immortal. 
There is a grandeur of destination here, 
that far outweighs all the pride and pre- 





320 


tension of this world’s grandeur. Those 
lordly honours which some men fetch 
from the antiquity of their race are but 
poor indeed, when compared with that 
more signal honour which all men have 
in the eternity of their duration. In re- 
spect of immortality, the great and the 
small ones of the earth stand on an equal 
eminence—and in respect of the death 
which comes before it, both have to sink 
to the same humiliating level. The 
prince shares with the peasant in the hor- 
ror and loathsomeness of death—the 
peasant shares with the prince in the high 
distinction of immortality. It is because 
in the poorest man’s bosom, there resides 
an undying principle—it is because of 
that endless futurity which is before him, 
and in the progress of which all the 
splendours and obscurations of our pres- 
ent state will be speedily forgotten—it is 
because, though of yesterday, the bliss 
and the brightness of coming centuries 
may be upon his path; and, whatever 
the complexion of his future history shall 
be, yet the sublime character of eternity 
shall rest upon it—it is because of these 
that humanity, however it be clothed and 
conditioned in this evanescent world, 
should be the object of an awful rever- 
ence ; and if, by reason of those perisha- 
ble glories which sit on a monarch’s 
brow for but one generation, it be imper- 
ative to honour the king—then, by rea- 
son of those glories which the meanest 
may attain to, and which are to last for 
ever, it is still more imperative to honour 
all men. 

It is in virtue of the natural equality 
between man and man, of the like noble 
prospects and the like high capacities 
among all the members of the species— 
that we have never hesitated on the ques- 
tion of popular or plebeian education ; 
and when it is asked, how far should the 
illumination of the lower orders in society 
be permitted to go ?—we do not scruple to 
reply, that it should be to the very utter- 


ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 


[SERM. 


whole mass into a state of busy and mis- 


chievous fermentation—and some great 
coming disorder were surely to result 


from the growing intelligence of those 


who form the vast majority of our com- 
monwealth. And, in addition to what 
injury it is apprehended the social edifice 
at large might sustain from the elevation 
of the popular mind, it is further thought 
that individually it is fraught with utter- 
most discomfort to the people themselves; 
that it will induce a restlessness, a discon- 
tent, a wayward ambition, wholly unsuit- 
ed to their state as labourers ; that hence- 
forward they will spurn at the ignoble 
drudgeries of their lot; and that the fruit 
of making them scholars will be wholly 
to unhinge and unsettle them as work- 
men. And when once this impatience 
becomes general, a certain fierce and fe- 
verish aspiring, it is feared, will run 
throughout that class in society who even 
now by the superiority of their muscular 
force are enough formidable—and of 
whom the terror is, that when once a 
mental force is superadded to the musceu- 
lar, they will overleap all the barriers of 
public safety, and be the fell instruments 
of a wild and wasteful anarchy over the 


| face of the land. 


This is notaltogether the place for expos- 
ing what we deem to be the utter ground- 
lessness of such imaginations ; and there- 
fore, without touching at all on the politi- 
cal apprehension lest Education should 
lodge a power that is dangerous in the 
hands of the labouring classes—we shall 
just say of the personal, or of that which 
relates to the habits and character of the 
individual labourer, that we believe it to 
be scarcely ever if at any time realized. 
We positively find them to be among the 
best symptoms of a trusty and well-condi- 
tioned mechanic, if, upon entering his 
house, we find the humble library upon 
his shelves—or if in taking account of 
his hours, we find the time which many 
give to evening dissipation given by him 


most of what their taste and their time| to the attendance or the preparations of a 


and their convenience will permit. There 
have been a dread and a jealousy upon 
this topic wherewith we cannot at all 
sympathize—somewhat of the same alarm 


mechanic school. There is no such dis 
crepancy between the powers and the 
principles of our complex nature, no such 
awkward sorting or balancing of parts in 


for the progress of scholarship among the| the human constitution, as that there must 


working classes, that is felt for the pro- 
gress of sedition—just as if the admission 


be a stifling of some in order to make 
room for the right and prosperous opera- 


of lizht amongst them were to throw the| tion of the others—-as, for example, that 


Se a 


XXXVHI.] 


all liberal curiosity, all appetite for the 
informations of science should be kept in 
check, lest industry be relaxed, or the 
cares of a family provision be altogether 
forgotten. The ingredients of our com- 
pound being are really in far better adjust- 
ment than that all should be so very apt 
to go into disorder, upon any one of them 
being fostered into activity by the excite- 
ment of its own peculiar gratification— 
and it will be found that a taste for litera- 
ture, and patient assiduity in labour, and 
a reflective prudence in every matter of 
family economics, and a habit of sound 
and good workmanship on the one hand, 
with a well exercised intellect even in the 
subjects of general speculation upon the 
other—that all these may be at work, 
and in fullest harmony together with one 
and the same individual. Instead of spoil- 
ing him as an artisan, they would only 
transform him into an artisan of a higher 
caste—and as there is a general move- 
ment all over the land for a higher edu- 
cation to our people, let us do nothing to 
curb the energies of their aspiring intel- 
lect—but rather rejoice in the bright anti- 
cipation that must at length be realized, 
of a well-taught and a highly lettered 
peasantry. On a progress like this we 
would lay no limitation. Let it go freely 
and indefinitely onwards—nor be afraid, 
as many are, lest there should be too 
much of schooling or even too much of 
science for the common people. That 
were a noble achievement in political 
economy, did it point out the way by 
which, through better wages and less 
work, the children of handicraft and of 
hard labour might be somewhat lighten- 
ed of their toils. And that were a still 
nobler achievement in philanthropy, 
could their then wider and more frequent 
intervals of repose be reclaimed from 
toose and loathsome dissipation—could 
even an infant but growing taste for phi- 
losophy be made to supplant all the coars- 
er depravities of human vice—and they, 
admitted to more of companionship than 
they now have with men of a higher 
walk in society, give frequent demonstra- 
‘tim, that, even amid the drudgery of 
their humble condition, there was among 
them much of the unquenched fire of 
genius, and a still vigorous play of those 
_ perceptions and those powers by which 
our common nature is ennobled. 
41 


ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN, 





321 


Having said thus much for that educa- 
tion which gives the knowledge of sci. 
ence to the common people—we feei our- 
selves placed on still higher vantage 
ground, when we plead for that education 
to them which gives the knowledge of re- 
Jigion. If we hold the one to be desira- 
ble, we hold the other to be indispensable. 
In our estimation there is a certain nar- 
rowness of soul, among those who are 
jealous even of their most daring as- 
cents into the region of a higher scholar- 
ship; but to lay an interdict upon all 
scholarship, is in truth nothing better 
than the midnight darkness of Popery. 
And yet, in certain quarters of our land, 
there still lurks, in deep and settled in- 
veteracy, that intolerance which would 
withhold the very alphabet from our pop- 
ulation ; and though in one respect, it 1s 
the key to the revealed mysteries of hea- 
ven, the instrument for unlocking that 
gospel which was designed so specially 
for the ignorant and the poor—yet still 
there be some who, aloft from all sym- 
pathy with the lower ordeis, can admit 
of no higher demand from them than the 
mere wants of their animal existence. 
The eternity of the poor does not enter 
into their care or computation at all. 
They are viewed in scarcely any other 
light than as the instruments of labour, 
as so many pieces of living mechanism 
that have their useful application along 
with those other springs and principles 
of action which keep the busy apparatus 
of our great manufactories in play—their 
limbs as the levers of a certain kind of 
machinery, and the spirit that is within 
them but as that moving force by which 
the human enginery is set agoing. ‘The 
immortality of this spirit is as little re- 
garded, as if it were indeed but a vapour 
that passeth away. It is valued only be- 
cause of the materialism which it ani- 
mates, or of the motion which by means 
of a curious and complicated framework, 
it can impress on any tangible thing that 
is transformed thereby into some article 
of merchandise. It is thus that Human- 
ity is apt to be addressed or treated with, 
singly for the physical strength which it 
might be made to yield in the service of 
busy artisanship—and, without one ungen- 
erous reflection on the great capitalists of 
our land, it is thus that sometimes at least 
there is a certain grossness of mercantile 


322 


spirit, in virtue of which, our nature, in 
despite of all its noble capacities, and the 
exceeding grandeur of its ultimate desti- 
nation is very apt to be grossly brutal- 
ized, 

It is therefore the more refreshing, 
when, in some densely peopled territory 
that is all in a fervour with the smoke 
and the din and the unremitting turmoil 
of its many fabrications, there is seen an 
interest to arise in the religion of the as- 
sembled host, and on the side of their im- 
mortal well-bemg—when, for so wide 
and plenteous a harvest there at length 
appears a band of resolute and devoted 
labourers—when, in the midst of a field 
so rich in the materials for a great spiri- 
tual manufacture that hath its gains and 
its proceeds in eternity, men are to be 
found of compass enough and Christianity 
enough for this highest enterprise of cha- 
rity—when a company is formed with a 
design and on a speculation so magnifi- 
cent, as far to surpass the sublimest an- 
ventures of commerce—and, instead of 
that transformation on the rude produce 
of our country, which is effected by the 
labour of human hands, it is proposed to 
go forth on the people of the country as 
the subjects of a noble transformation ; 
and to impress upon human souls, now 
in the darkness and earthliness of nature, 
a glory that is unperishable. 

It is a reproach to the spirit of mer- 
chandise,—when in its exclusive demand 
for the physical strength and service of 
human beings, it gives but little regard 
to their eternity—yet among the sons of 
merchandise, we do meet with many of 
those zealous and enlightened philanthro- 
pists, who, by their efforts in the cause 
both of common and of Christian scho- 
larship, have done much to redeem the 
imputation. ‘There is indeed the grossest 
injustice in every imputation that leads to 
the fastening of an odium or an obloquy, 
upon a whole order—and we might here 
take the opportunity of saying in reference 
to another order, and when we hear so 
much of an alleged conspiracy on the 
part of monarchs against the illumination 
of our species, it is far indeed from hold- 
ing universally, There is a growing lib- 
erality upon the subject among all the 
classes of society—and as surely as work- 
masters are now learning that education 
furnishes them with their best and most 


ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 


[SERM 


valuable servants—so surely will Kings 
also learn, that the firmest basis upon 
which their authority can be upholden, — 
is a virtuous and a well schooled pea 
Santry. 

The ancient prejudice upon this ques- 
tion is now on all hands rapidly subsid 
ing. The cause of popular ignorance is 
no longer incorporated, as it wont to be, 
with the cause of loyalty and established 
order. Even they who sit in the highest 
places, and were at all times the most 
sensitively fearful of any new element. 
that, when brought into play, might de- 
range and unsettle the existing frame- 
work of society—even they can now look 
without alarm on that heaving of the pop- 
ular mind towards a higher scholarship, 
which is now fermenting and spreading 
over the whole face of the British com- 
monwealth. We are aware of nothing 
more truly important to the cause of ed- 
ucation, than some recent practical testi- 
monies of our landed aristocracy to the 
worth of Scotland’s parochial teachers, 
and their offer of a helping hand to se- 
cure and to speed the ascent of our coin- 
mon people, though already perhaps the 
most lettered in Europe or in the world, 
even above the level of their present ac-_ 
quirements. There could not more au- 
thentic demonstration have been given, 
and from a quarter more thoroughly un- 
suspicious, to the safety of a learning for 
the vulgar—and there is nought more de- 
lightful than thus to behold the upper 
classes of society, giving welcome and 
encouragement to the lower for a nearer 
assimilation with themselves in that know- 
ledge which is more honourable than 
wealth, in those mental accomplishments 
which shed its truest grace and dignity 
upon our nature. 

There are two opposite directions in 
which we have to witness what may be 
called an ultra or extreme politics. One 
of those extremes is now getting fast ob- 
solete, at least in Scotland—for in our 
sister country there is still an inveteracy 
about it, which may not give way for 
perhaps one or two generations. To pic- 
ture it forth most effectually, we might 
seize in imagination upon some one indi- 
vidual by whom it is realized—who, frank 
and generous, and kind-hearted in all the 
relations of private society, yet on every — 
question of public or parliamentary war: 


XXXVI] 


fare shows all the fiercest antipathies of 
high and antiquated cavaliership—who, 
merciful and munificent in all his lead- 
ings with his own people, yet eyes a bo- 
ding mischief in every new and advanc- 
ing movement by the people of the land 
—who deems it perhaps one of the glo- 
ries of Old England to have a jovial and 
well-fed peasantry, yet would feel the 
education of them to be a raising of them 
out of their places, and so a disturbance 
on the sober and settled orthodoxy of other 
days—who fears a lurking sectarianism 
in this active and widely diffused scholar- 
ship—that might afterwards break forth 
into outrage on England’s venerated 
throne, and her noble hierarchy; and 
therefore would vastly rather than this 
age of philanthropic restlessness, have 
the age brought back again, when pas- 
time and holiday, and withal a veneratiqn 
for Church, had full ascendant over the 
hearts and habits of a then unlettered 
population. Still in many of England’s 
princely halls, in many a baronial resi- 
dence, there exists a feeling that her 
golden time has passed away—and that 
this new device of a popular education is 
among the deadliest of the destroyers. 
High in loyalty, and devoted by all the 
influences of sentiment, and ancestily, 
and sworn partisanship to the prerogi\ 
tives of monarchy; they honour the 
king—but, overlooking the intellect, and 
the capacity, and the immortal nature 
that reside even in the meanest of his 
subjects, and so regardless as they are of 
the still higher prerogratives of mind ; 
they do not and they know not how to 
‘honour all men. 

But in counterpart to this, there is ano- 
ther extreme that to our taste is greatly 
more offensive than the former—when 
the cause of education is vilified by mix- 
ing up with it in the meantime, that ac- 
cursed thing which education at length 
will utterly exterminate—when a mecha- 
nic school is made the vehicle of an out- 
rageous disaffection to all authority, and 
a mechanic publication breathes the fierce- 

~ ness of radicalism throughout all its pages 
—when one cannot in any way devise 
either for the religion or the science of 
our lower orders, but this unclean spirit 
must insinuate and turn it all to loath- 
someness ; and every honest effort to ob- 
tain a more enlightened peasantry is 


ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 


328 


either paralyzed or poisoned, by the ob- 
truded alliance of men, who bear no 
other regard to the people than as the in- 
struments of some great public or politi- 
cal overthrow. Still it vouches nobly for 
the good of a people’s scholarship, that 
this abuse is chiefly exemplified in that 
land where they are just emerging from 
ignorance, and that in our own more let- 
tered country it is comparatively unknown 
—that it is there and not here where this 
cause has been seized upon by dema- 
gogues, who, while they would flatter the 
multitude into the belief that they honour 
all men, give full manifestation by al! 
their writings and their ways, that they 
do not honour the king. 

It is in such conflicts of human passion 
and human party, that Christianity comes 
forth in the meekness of wisdom, and 
points out to us the more excellent way. 
It unites loyalty to the King with love, 
nay reverence, for the very humblest of 
his subject population—and can both do 
homage to the dignity of office that sits 
upon the one, and to those exalted capaci- 
ties, both of worth and intellect, which 
lie in wide and wealthy diffusion through 
the other. There is nought of the pusil- 
lanimous in its devotion to the Crown, 
and nought of the factious and the turbu- 
lent in the descents which it makes 
among the common people. We have 
felt that glow which the presence of a 
monarch can awaken, when, instead of 
the crouching servility of bondsmen, we 
are conscious of nothing but the generous 
and high-minded enthusiasm of gallant 
chivalry. And equal to this is the pure 
and philanthropic triumph which the 
spectacle of a beggar’s school is fit to 
awaken, when instead of a fiery sedition 
lighted up in the heart, and rankling its 
mischievous fermentations there, the mind 
indulges in the soothing perspective of 
that brighter day, when the whole com- 
munity of our empire shall be moulded 
into a harmonious and well ordered 
family. To call forth the energies of the 
popular mind by the power of a high 
education being made to bear upon it, 
will most surely add to the stability of 
the throne, while it must serve to lift and 
to embellish the whole platform of society. 
It will speed the progress of the species, 
but not along a track of revolutionary 
violence. The moral perfectibility of the 


» B24 


infidel may call for the demolition both 
of altars and of thrones—but the opera- 
tions of the Christian philanthropist leave 
the fabric of our civil polity untouched ; 
and, in that Millennium, after which he 
aspires, he sees Kings to be the nursing 
fathers, and Queens the nursing mothers, 
of our Zion. He. has no fellowship 
either with those who would revile the 


MORAL. INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 


[SERM. 


monarch, or who would refuse to enlight- 
en the people—and, though fired with the 
hopes.of some great and coming enlarge- 
ment, he founds them on the prophecies 
of a Book, whose precepts within the ut- 
terance of one breath, and placed together 
in the same text, are to honour the King 
and to honour all men. 


SERMON XXXIX. 


On the Moral Influence of Fidelity. 


“ Not purloining, but showing all good fidelity ; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Sa- 


viour in all things.”—Tirus ui. 10. 


Ir is the duty of the Christian minister 
to bring forward not one part of the di- 
vine will, but all the parts. of it—and 
whatever he sees urged and insisted upon 
in the Bible, he lies under the solemn 


obligation of urging and insisting upon it 


also. Now it is remarkable, that, when 
urging some of the commandments, he is 
looked upon as more religiously em- 
ployed, than when urging some other of 
the commandments. ‘There are certain 
subjects which do not carry to the eye of 
many, the same aspect of godliness with 
others. A sermon on sabbath breaking, 
for example, would be regarded as a more 
characteristic exercise, and as more allied 
with the solemn and appropriate functions 
of the pulpit, than a sermon upon theft ; 
and, generally speaking, while the duties 
of the first table are listened to by the 
more serious professors of Christianity 
with a pious and respectful feeling of their 
high importance—it may be observed that 
the duties of the second table, when urged 
in all their minuteness, and brought for- 
ward in all their varieties, and illustrated 
by references to the homely and familiar 
experience of human life, are looked upon 
as having a certain degree of earthliness 
about them—to be as much inferior in 
point of religiousness to the duties of the 
first table, as the employments of a com- 
mon week-day are inferior to the employ- 
ments of the sabbath—in a word, while 
the one bears to many the aspect of sa- 
eredness, the other bears the aspect of se- 


cularity—and when a minister gives his 
strength and his earnestness for a whole 
sermon to the latter, there is a feeling 
among his hearers that he has descendea 
from that high ground on which a godly 
or an orthodox minister loves to expa- 
tiate. 

We forbear at present to enter into the 
explanation of this very notable peculiari- 
ty, though it does admit we think of a 
most interesting explanation. The thing 
complained of, forms a serious obstacle in 
the way of our attempts to enforce the 
whole will of God, and to explain the 
whole of his counsel. If there be any 
part of that will of which the exposition 
is resisted as a evry odd and uncommon 
and perhaps ridiculous subject from the 
pulpit, how shall we be able to command 
a reverential hearing for it? In what 
way shall we establish the authority 
of God over all the concerns of a man’s 
history ? Should not the solemnity of 
religious obligation be made to over- 
spread the whole field and compass of 
human affairs ?—and if it be not so is not 
this disposing God from the supremacy 
which belongs to Him? Is it not just 
saying that there are places and occasions 
in which we will not have Him to reign 
over us? Is it not disowning His right 
of having all things done to His glory? 
And those hearers who love to be told of 
what they owe to God on the salbath 
and in the holy days of sacrament and 
prayer—but who love not to be told 


_XXxIx.] 


MORAL INFUENCE OF FIDELITY. 


325 


of what they owe Him in their shops and | blood will be required of him. This is 


in their market places and in their every- 
_ day employments—they are just narrow- 
ing the limits of His jurisdiction, and with 
all their seeming reverence for godliness 
as the only high and appropriate theme 
for the pulpit, they are in fact wresting 
from God his sovereignty over the great 
bulk of human existence. With the quit- 
rent of a few occasional acknowledge- 
ments, they are for securing the mighty 
remainder of time to themselves—and are 
for putting off with fragments that Being 
who demands of all His creatures, the 
homage of an entire service—the incense 
of a perpetual offering. 

We should like all hearers to feel the 
religiousness of that topic which this text 
leads us to insist upon. We should like 
them to annex as serious a feeling of so- 
lemnity and obligation to the eighth of 
God’s commandments, as to the fourth of 
His commandments. Both were an- 
nounced in thunder from mount Sinai. 
Both were heard to issue in the same 
voice of authority from the throne of the 
lawgiver. The violations of both are 
written in the book of God’s remem- 
brance; and they are ranked among the 
bad deeds done in the body, which will 
bring down from the judgment-seat the 
same awful doom upon the children of ini- 
quity. The place which the command- 
ment possesses in the catalogue is surely 
of no great’ consequence in the matter. 
Enough that it be a commandment. 
Enough for one and for all of us that thus 
saith the Lord. He orders one thing, 
and: He orders another. If the one thing 


must be observed with reverence, because 


He orders it—there is precisely the same 


reason for-the other thing being also ob-, 


served with reverence. And if “sanctify 
the sabbath-day and keep it holy” be a 
godly and religious subject, then do we 
contend that, “Thou shalt not steal” is a 
godly and a religious subject also. 

In this case the minister has no choice. 
If the consciences of any of his hearers 
are blind upon this subject, that is the 
very reason why he should labour to 
open and to enlighten them. He stands 
charged with the office of expounding 
and urging and solemnly insisting upon 
all the requisitions of the Bible. If he do 
not warn the sinner from his way, the 
sinner will die in his iniquity, but his 


® 


perfectly decisive as to his conduct. It is 
with him a matter of self--nterest, as well 
as of duty, to warn his hearers against all 
sin—and, knowing as he does that there 
is an awful day of reckoning before them, 
that he must appear in the midst of them 
at the bar of God, that he will be called 
upon to give an account of them and be 
examined upon this, whether he has 
watched over the souls of his people, and 
faithfully attempted to.guard them against 
all error, and to warn them against all 
unrighteousness—woe be to him if he is 
deterred by any senseless or ignorant 
levity whatever, from coming forward 
with a faithful and a firm exposition 
of the truth, or from sounding in their 
ears this awful testimony of God’s abhor- 
rence of the sin of stealing, that thieves 
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 

In the further prosecution of this dis- 
course, we shall first endeavour to explain 
what the precise sin is which the text 
warns us against. We shall secondly 
insist on its exceeding sinfulness, in spite 
of all the pleas which are offered to palli- 
ate or to excuse it. And thirdly we shall 
press the duty which is opposed to the 
sin of the text, that is, good fidelity by 
the motive which the text itself insists 
upon, that we may adorn the doctrine of 
God our Saviour in all things. 

The sin of the text receives a particular 
name, and it must therefore receive a par- 
ticular explanation. It is not called steal- 


‘ing, though it be certainly a species of it 


Stealing is neither more nor less thar. 
taking to oneself what belongs to another 
and what he does not give. We should 
apply this term to the act of a man wha 
entered into another house than that in 
which he tarried, and bore away of the 
moveables he found in it—or to the act 
of a man who came to another farm than 
that on which he laboured, and carried 
off such produce as he could lift away 
with him—or to the act of a man who 
made out his access into a shop or a 
workhouse belonging to another master, 
and abstracted such money or such goods 
as he could lay his hand upon. ‘There 
are so many acts of theft—and to give a 
clear idea of what that is which turns 
an act of theft into an act of pur- 
loining, we have only to conceive. that, 





instead of another entering the house, a 


326 


servant within it were to help himself to 
such things as he had access to, without 
any understood allowance from the mas- 
ter or the mistress who employed him— 
or that, instead of another coming to a 
farm, a labourer belonging to it were to 
make a daily and a weekly habit of se- 
creting a part of its produce, for the pur- 
pose of feeding his own little stock, or 
helping out the maintenance of his young 
family—or that, instead of another find- 
ing his way into your shop or your 
workhouse, the man you employed to 
keep the one or to work in the other, 
were to pocket for his own use what he 
thinks he might bear away without too 
great a hazard of detection. All these 
are so many undoubted examples of theft 
—but such a theft as would more readily 
be characterised by the term purloining. 
To steal is to take that which is not our 
own. ‘To purloin is to take that which 
is not our own—but then the thing so 
taken must be that which we have in 
trust, or that to which our situation as an 
agent or a Servant or an overseer gives 
us free and frequent access. When pur- 
loining is done upon a large scale it 
sometimes changes its name, though not 
its nature. It is then called an embezzle- 
ment. To embezzle is quite equivalent 
to purloin in the nature of the act, though 
greater in the extent of it. Thus we 
have heard of the embezzlement of public 
stores, of the embezzlement of the royal 
treasury. It is an act of theft performed 
by a confidential agent of the crown— 
and we have succeeded in the object of 
all these explanations, if we have led our 
hearers to perceive the reason why Paul 
addresses the advice of the text to people 
in a particular situation. They are in 
the situation of servants—and, taking in 
the 9th verse, the whole advice runs 
thus, ‘“ Exhort servants to be obedient 
unto their own masters, and to please 
them well in all things, not answering 
again; not purloining, but showing all 
good fidelity that they may adorn the 
doctrine of God our Saviour in all 
things.’ 

We now proceed in the second place 
to insist on the exceeding sinfulness of 
this sin, in spite of all the pleas which 
are offered to palliate or to excuse it. 

The first palliation is a kind of tacit 
one, by which the understanding is im- 


MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY, 


[sERM,. 


posed upon, and the conscience quieted, 
merely through the change of name 
which this crime has undergone. Be. 
cause it is not commonly called stealing, 
it is not conceived to have the disgrace or 
the odiousness of stealing. ‘There is a 
wonderful power of imposition in words 
—and how many a purlomer may quiet 
all that is troublesome within him by the 
reflection that what he does is not steal- 
ing; it is only taking. Thus may he 
try to escape the imputation of stealing, 
by merely giving a different name to his 
iniquity—but, if the thing thus taken be 
not his to take, it is to all intents and pur- 
poses, stealing—he merits the full dis- 
grace of being called a thief—and, what 
is still more awful than all the disgrace 
with which this world can cover him, he 
is guilty of a sin, which, if persisted in, 
will most infallibly exclude him from the 
inheritance of the kingdom of God. To 
undeceive him, he should be made dis- 
tinctly to know that there is no difference 
whatever in the sins; that an angry and 
offended God looks with equal displea- 
sure upon both, and will assign to each 
the same awful punishment in the great 
day of reckoning. This low work of 
purloining is just stealing under another 
name. It is taking what belongs to ano. 
ther, and what that other has not given. 
Every understanding will acknowledge, 
that, however it may be glossed over by 
another and a milder designation, it is an 
act of theft; and what every understand- 
ing will acknowledge, we want every 
conscience to feel. But we go further. 
We take up a principle contained in our 
Shorter Catechism, where it is said, in 
answer to the question, “ Are all sins 
equally heinous in the sight of God ?” 
That “some sins, by reason of several 
aggravations, are more heinous in the 
sight of God than others.” Now pur- 
loining contains in it an aggravation 
which does not belong to a bare and sim- 
ple example of stealing. The stranger 
who does not know me, and whom I 
never trusted, may come to my premises 
and steal of my property. But the ser- 
vant who purloins does know me, lives 
under my roof, is maintained by my 
wages, and, above all, has had a con- 
fidence placed in him which he has 
chosen to abuse and to violate. I left a 
door open, or I made over a charge, 


XXXIX. | 


or I invested him with a particular 
commission, and why? because I had 
faith in his integrity and discretion. The 
stranger thief is guilty of one vice—an 
act of dishonesty. The household thief 
is dishonest too ; but he is more than this. 
He has betrayed the trust I put in him. 
He has repaid my good opinion of him, 
by an act of ingratitude and an act of un- 
faithfulness. 1 was led away by his fair 
appearances; and he has turned out a 
hypocrite. He has added to the guilt of 
stealing, the guilt of cunning and false- 
hood and habitual concealment. These 
are agoravations which make the pur- 
loining of the servant far more provoking 
to him who suffers by it, than the depre- 
dations of the nightly vagabond. But 
they are not only more provoking to man 
—they are more provoking to a just and 
a holy God. The aggravations which 
we have just now spoken of will tell on 
the awful sentence of the great day. The 
discerner of the thoughts and intents of 
the heart sees and judges of every ‘one of 
them; and when the time cometh that 
the secrets of all hearts shall be laid 
open, the low pilferments of the farm, of 
the family, and of the workshop, will ap- 
pear to the shame and condemnation of 
the guilty. 

But there is another plea on which the 
purloiner tries to find himself something 
like an acquittal, from the shame and the 
remorse of his secret iniquities. How- 
ever great at the end of months or of 
years his depredations may be in the 
amount, yet, to escape detection, he is 
forced to make them small in the detail. 
The distinct and single theft of every one 
day is but a petty affair—and his con- 
science easily falls into the snare, that, as 
what he does take at any one time is so 
very little it is not worth the thinking of. 
But what right has he, we would ask, to 
make any addition to the eighth com- 
mandment? God says, “ Thou shalt not 
steal,” and then he brings the command- 
ment to a close. He does not say thou 
shalt not steal much, leaving us at free- 
dom to steal a little, and to judge how 
little we may steal with innocence and 
safety. He says, thou shalt not steal, 
and then he leaves off. If we steal the 
value of a farthing, it is a stolen farthing. 
It*is evidence enough to convict of a 
breach of the eighth commandment, by 


MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. — 





327 


which we are enjoined not o steal at all. 
Little as we may think of it, it is enough 
to convict us of disobedience to the entire 
and absolute commandment of God—and 
it will turn out the accursed thing, which, 
if not repented of and not turned from, 
will be the death and the condemnation 
of our souls. He that is unjust in the 
least, says our Saviour. is unjust also in 
much. It may be so little as to be the 
very least—but if stolen, it is an act of in- 
justice—and He who knew what was in 
man says, that he who can do the very 
least act of injustice can do a great one. 
O how many go to Hell with what they 
account small sins. Small sin! is sina 
small matter? If we have stolen to the 
value of a single grain, we have broken 
the law of God; and do we call that an 
affair of small consequence? ‘The mo- 
ment we stretch forth our hand to what 
is another’s be it ever so little, we have 
broken the line which lies betwixt duty 
and rebellion. We have got over the 
wall which separates lawful from forbid- . 
den ground, and however little way we 
have got on the forbidden ground, still 
we are on it—and, if apprehended there 
and brought to the bar of judgment, we 
shall be treated as criminals. Go not, 
ye purloiners and household thieves, to 
delude your consciences any more on this 
subject. Go not to make any distinction 
which the law of God does not make. 
Think not that you will escape condem- 
nation; because the thing stolen is so very 
little. Think not that this plea will 
serve you with God, whose law must be 
fulfilled to the very last jot and tittle of it 
—and we tell you that if you ever pray 
and lift up your hands unto God—then 
though you have stolen only to the 
amount of a morsel or a fragment which 
does not belong to you, God will look 
upon your hands and see them to be un- 
clean. The defilement of the thing sto- 
len sticks to them; and He beholding it 
will turn in indignation from your 


| prayers and your offering. 


The next plea we propose to your at- 
tention is, that the master out of whose 
stock we have purloined is rich—he will 
not miss it, and it can do him no harm. 
Still making additions of their own you 
will observe to the law of God. Still do- 
ing as the Pharisees did before them— 
making the commandment of God of 


328 


none effect by their traditions, and teach- 
ing for doctrines the commandments and 
inventions of men. God says thou shalt 
not steal. He does not say thou shalt 
not steal from the poor, leaving us at 
liberty to steal from the rich whenever 
we have opportunity. The distinction 
betwixt rich and poor in this matter is a 
distinction of their own. By making 
this plea they not only disobey God ; but 
they insult Him by offering to mend His 
law, and bringing forward what they 
think a better one of their own. Heaven 
and earth shall pass away, but the word 
of God shall not pass away. And that 
word is—let him that stole steal no more. 
There is no allusion to rich or poor in 
this injunction. Nay, in the text it is 
stealing from the rich that is expressly 
forbidden. The poor, generally speak- 
ing, are the servants; and the rich, 
generally speaking, are the masters— 
and servants are ordered not to purloin 
from their masters, but to show all good 
fidelity. No, there is nothing for it, but 
an entire separation from this unclean 
and accursed practice. It is an express 
violation of God’s law ; and admits of no 
plea, no palliation. It is a dangerous ex- 
periment to trifle with sin, and to venture 
upon what we are pleased to think the 
lesser shades and degrees of it. The 
moment that sin is committed, even in 
the very least degrees of it, the fence 
which separates obedience from rebellion 
is broken down. After we have got 
over that fence, there is no saying how 
far we may go. After a garden wall is 
once leaped, it is not doing much more to 
enter its most precious depositaries, and 
spoil it of its fairest and richest produc- 
tions. And here we may repeat, by the 
way, that the first sin ever committed by 
man forms a striking refutation of the two 
pleas which we are now attempting to 
expose. The thing stolen was a fruit. 
The master he stole it from was the Lord 
of Heaven and of Earth—to whom be- 
longs the cattle on a thousand hills, and 
who sits surrounded with the wealth of 
mnumerable worlds. What becomes of 
the smallness of the sin now? It was 
just this sin which banished Adam from 
paradise, which broke up the communion 
between earth and heaven—which entail- 
ed ruin on a whole species of moral and 
intelligent creatures. The infidel laughs | 





MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 


[SERM. 


at the story, and with all the parade ofan ~ 1 


enlightened wisdom he counts it ridicu- 
lous—he thinks how paltry the offence— 
and how big the mischief and the ruin 
which are stated to have sprung from it. 
But he only betrays the grossness of a 
mind, which cannot rise above the esti- 
mates and the calculations of an ordinary 
man—which looks no further than to the 
visible performance, and is blind to the 
only principle which gives to the per- 
formance its moral character. It is not. 
in the magnitude of the thing done, that 
the chief magnitude of the offence lies. 
It is the state of mind implied by the do- 
ing of it. Had Adam rooted out every 
tree of paradise, and dismantled the gar- 
den of all its beauties—we might have 
thought that his offence lay in the mate- 
rial extent of the injury that was done by 
him. But Adam did no more than stead 
a forbidden fruit; and, for any evil per- 
formed by his hand, Eden might have 
remained in all its b oom and in all its 
loveliness. But in proportion as the ma- 
terial hurt was small, is the grandeur and 
the entireness of the moral lesson convey- 
ed by it. It leads our single eye to the 
foulness of that turpitude which lies in 
disobedience to God. The thing done 
was small in itself—but it carried rebel- 
lion in its principle. Thus saith the 
Lord, was the sanction which lay upon 
it—and that sanction was trampled upon. 
When God said Let there be light, and 
there was light-—-we look upon this as a 
sublime and wonderful evidence of His - 
power. When God said, In the day he 
eateth he shall die, and he did eat, and 
from that moment a cloud of malignant 
darkness gathered upon the head of the 
offender, and hangs to this hour over his 
distant posterity—-we look upon this as 
an evidence no less sublime of His truth 
and of His righteousness. The simpli- 
city of the visible act enables us to see 
the spiritual character of this great trans- 
action in all its majesty—nor can the 
senseless levities we have heard on the 
subject of Adam’s fall, keep us from 
viewing it as one in dignity with the other 
events of that wonderful period, when the 
Almighty had spread a new creation 
around him, and displayed the attributes 
of His high and unchangeable nature 
among the beings whom He had formed. 
Take this lesson to yourselves, ye pur 


XXXIX.] 


loiners, who are going on deceiving your 
consciences, and heaping ruin and con- 
demnation upon your deluded souls. You 
think the thing purloined is so very 
small, and the master you stole it from is 
so very rich. But what right have you 
to set your thinkings and your excusings 
against the awful authority of “ Thus 
saith the Lord?” It is no matter how 
small the theft. It is no matter how rich 
the man who suffers by it. God’s au- 
thority is trampled upon by the act. His 
Holy Bible is despised. His judgment 
is bid defiance to—and the saying of the 
Apostle Paul is as much slighted and 
undervalued as if no Apostle had ever 
said it, that thieves shall not inherit the 
kingdom of God. O, if any of you have 
been hitherto deceived upon this subject, 
suffer now the word of exhortation. Go 
not to trifle any longer with the precious 
interest of your souls. Resist not what 
we say, because it touches painfully upon 
your practices or your consciences. We 
mean no offence. We want to stir up no 
anger among you. We bring forward 
no railing accusation. It is the general 
and unceasing importance of the subject 
which has led us to fix upon it; for we 
give you our solemn assurance, that we 
know of no act of purloining committed 
by any one of you—nor do we have in 
our eye a Single guilty individual. For 
any thing we know, there is not one of 
you who is not nobly superior to the 
slightest taint and degree of this iniquity 
—and, in this case, the sole use of this 
sermon may be that you shall be kept 
clean through the word now spoken to 
you. But lest there should be a purloin- 
er in this congregation, we think it our 
high and awfully incumbent duty, to 
stretch forth our hand that we may arrest 
and reclaim him from that road of perdi- 
tion on which he is _hastening—and 
surely you will grant us your indulgence 
when we say, that in doing what we have 
done, we have only lifted our testimony 
against what we honestly believe would 
land him in everlasting burnings if it be 
persisted in. 
But let us now endeavour, in the third 
_ place, to press the duty which is opposed 
to the sin of the text, that is, good fidelity 
—by the motive which the -ext itself in- 
sists upon, that you may adorn the doc- 
trine of God our Saviour in all things. 
42 


MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 


329 


Let us observe, however, that the servants 
whom 'Titus was to exhort, were among 
the people of bis own congregation. 
They formed a Christian community ; 
and, whatever kind of people this desig- 
nation may be applied to now-a-days, it 
was applied in those days to men, who, 
in embracing the profession of the faith, 
formally renounced the errors or the idol- 
atries of their former years—to men, 
who, in making this profession, must 
generally speaking have been moved to 
it by a real belief in the great and prom:- 
nent truths of that new religion which 
was proposed to them: Or, in other 
words, the exhortation of the text is re- 
commended by Paul to be addressed to 
men, who, not only embraced the profes- 
sion of the faith, but had embraced the 
faith—to men who felt the influence of 
the great doctrines of Christianity—to 
men who had God revealed to them in 
their Saviour, and knew of the grace of 
God that bringeth salvation, and were 
under that process of teaching which the 
grace of God is employed in carrying on, 
and the object of which is that we should 
deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and 
live soberly, righteously, and godly in 
this present evil world. We know well 
the use that has been made of these con- 
siderations. Bring, it is said, these dis- 
Suasives against their evil practices to 
bear upon Christian servants. Exhort 
those who are already in the faith ; and, 
as to those who are not in the faith, in- 
cluding, for any thing we know, the great 
mass of servants who are now before us, 
suspend all our attacks upon their sins, 
till we have brought them to the Saviour 
—furnish them with a Christian motive, 
before we press them to a Christian re- 
formation—make them the subjects of 
grace, by giving them that faith which 
has the promise of the Spirit, ere we at- 
tempt that teaching which can only be 
done effectually by the grace that bring- 
eth salvation. Now, it is all very true 
that no obedience is pure in its principle, 
but that to which we are constrained by 


the love of God reconciled to us: in Christ 


Jesus—no obedience is successful in its 
accomplishment, but that which is 
wrought through the strength of Him 
who confers power to become the chil- 
dren of God only on those who believe 
—no obedience is acceptabletothe Father, 


330 


but such as is offered up in the name of 
the Son. All this is most true—and it 
must be our incessant object to grow in 
such obedience, by growing in the only 
principle which can actuate and uphold 
it. But recollect that there are expedi- 
ents set agoing by the wisdom of God 
for bringing men to Christ—and there 
are considerations addressed to sinners for 
the purpose of convincing them of dan- 
ger, and forcing them to flee for refuge 
unto Christ—and there are certain per- 
formances, which, in the very act of 
coming unto Christ, they are called upon 
to do—and, therefore it is, that, though 
at this moment you may be out of Christ 
and away from Him, we count it a sea- 
sonable topic for each and all of you, 
when we tell you of the exceeding sinful- 
ness of every ore sin with which you are 
chargeable. Itis right that every kind 
of unrighteousness should be made mani- 
fest to your consciences—for the wrath 
of God is revealed against all unrighteous- 
ness. It is right that every purloiner 
should be made to know what thousands 
and thousands more of purloiners are 
not aware of, that the heavy judgment 
of God lies upon them for that offence 
which they are apt to look on as so light 
and so common, and so natural and so 
excusable. It is right they should be 
made to understand how great the danger 
is, and what the place of security to flee 
to—and surely, the more ‘they are bur- 
dened with a sense of the wrath of God, 
the more will they feel the weight and 
importance of the saying, that unless they 
believe in Christ this wrath abideth on 
them. And surely if Christ said at the 
very outset, repent and believe the Gos- 
pel—if He said, he that followeth after 
me must forsake all—if the grace of God, 
at the first moment of its appearance, 
taught men to deny ungodiiness and 
worldly lusts—we are not out of place 
when we tell the most ignorant and 
zraceless purloiner among you, to turn 
aim to Christ, that he may obtain the for- 
ziveness of all his misdoings; and when 
we tell him within the compass of the 
same breathing to turn him from his ini- 
quities—that the man who keeps by his sins 
is in fact keeping away from the Saviour 
—that he is loving darkness rather than 
light because his deeds are evil—that he 
is not coming to the Saviour, for he is not 


MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 


[SERM. 


doing what all who come, must and will 
do—he is not stirring himself up in the 
business of forsaking all. The evil and 
inveterate habits of an unfaithful servant 
he will not forsake. He clings to them 
as so many idols that he cannot bring 
himself to part with. Christ, who claims 
the authority of his alone master, does 
not prevail upon him to give up the ser- 
vice of those sins which lord it over him. 
And it is, therefore, that he should know, 
how every day that he persists in this for- 
bidden practice, he is treasuring up wrath 
against the day of wrath, and putting the 
grace of an offered salvation and the 
voice of a beseeching God away from 
him. 

Let us therefore urge it most earnestly 
upon you that you consider your doings. 
Christ is willing to receive you; and, if 
you are willing to come to Him, to you 
belongs the whole extent of his purchased 
salvation. But you are not willing to 
come to Him, if you are more willing 
to retain your iniquities; and in these 
iniquities you will die. Sell your goods 
to feed the poor, says our Saviour to 
the young man in the Gospel, and then 
come and follow me; but he would not 
come to Him upon these terms, and his 
devotedness to his wealth was the bar 
that stood in his way to the kingdom of 
God. In like manner we call upon you 
purloiners to cleanse your hands and 
come to the Saviour. If you will not 
come upon these terms, the rich man had 
his bar in the way of salvation, and you 
have yours. He would not give up his 
property, and you will not give up the 
produce of your petty pilferments. You 
are not willmg to come to Christ that 
you may have life—for, sweet as is the 
life which is at his giving, it is not so 
sweet to your taste, as is the sweetness 
of those stolen waters which have hither- 
to been your secret and your habitual en- 
joyment. Esau sold his birthright for a 
mess of pottage, and he is therefore called 
the profane Esau. How much more 
profane are you, who are putting the 
offer of a birthright in heaven away from 
you-—and for what ?—for the crumbs and 
fragments of your paltry depredations. 
From this moment we charge you to 
touch them no more. Bid your hand 
cease from its pilferments ; and compel it 
to your bidding. If what we have said 


XXXIX. ] 


tell upon your conscience, this very night 
will it tea! upon your conduct. ‘'T'o-mor- 
row comes, and it will find you a reform- 
ing man—earnest how to find your sal- 
vation, and busy to frame your doings 
that you may turn unto the Lord. You 
will get up from the bed of reflection, 
with the purpose of keeping yourself 
clear and aloof from your wonted dis- 
honesties ; and+with a prayer that you 
may be strengthened in the execution of 
this purpose. ‘Till we see something of 
this kind, we see no evidence of your yet 
having taken a single step to the Saviour. 
Keep by the purloinings against which 
we have been charging you; and you 
are not so much as moving towards 
Christ, nor will you ever reach Him. 
Cease then from them at this moment— 
do this in the very act of going to the 
Saviour and seeking after him; and who 
knows but this first and foremost of your 
visible reformations, humble as it is when 
compared with the accomplishments of 
him who stands perfect and complete in 
the whole will of God, who knows but 
it may betoken the commencement of a 
good work in your soul ?—that awaken- 
ing of the sinner’s eye on which Christ 
has promised that he shall give light— 
the outset of that path which conducts 
from one degree of grace unto another, 
ull you reach the stature of the full grown 
Christian—an earlier stage of the jour- 
ney which conducts him who cometh 
unto Christ to all His promised manifes- 
tations, that, made to shine upon your 
head will make you rejoice more and 
more in the perfections of His righteous- 
ness, in the fulness of His grace and the 
freeness of His kind invitations, in the 
sureness of those never-failing supplies 
out of which you are strengthened with 
all might in the inner man, and enabled 
to do all things through the spirit which 
is given unto you. 

We now proceed to the motive which 
Paul urged upon the servants he was 
addressing—that they might adorn the 
doctrine of God their Saviour in all things. 
We think that two very distinct, and, at 
the same time very affecting and impor- 
tant lessons, may be drawn from this sin- 
gle clause of the verse now before us. 
The first is that a man’s Christianity 
might be made to show itself throughout 
the whole business of his vocation, what- 


MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 


331 


ever it may be—that it may be made to 
give a pervading expression to his whole 
history—that it might accompany and be 
at werk with him throughout every do- 
ing and every exercise he can put his 
hand to—that, in a word, the influence 
of its spirit is a perennial influence, ever 
present in the heart, and ever sending 
forth a powerful and a perpetual control 
over the conduct. It is not merely in 
one thing, or in another thing, that the 
doctrine of Christ is capable of being 
adorned. It admits of being adorned in 
all things. Doctrine sometimes. signi- 
fies the thing taught; and it sometimes 
signifies the process of teaching. We 
understand it more in the latter sense on 
the present occasion. Show how excel- 
Jent, and how purifying, and how univer- 
sal, in point of salutary influence, this 
teaching is. Sbow how completely it 
goes over the whole round of human per- 
formances. Show with what a compre- 
hensive eye, it surveys the map of human 
life, and stamps its own colour and gives 
its-own outline to its most remote and 
subordinate provinces. Let the world 
see, that wherever a man of Christian 
doctrine is present, and whatever the em- 
ployment be that he is engaged with, 
there at all times goes along with him a 
living exhibition of the power and the 
efficacy of Christian doctrine; that he 
represents by every one action the char- 
acter of the as: which he professes ; 
that the stamp of its morality may be re- 
cognised on his every distinct and sepa- 
rate performance; and that others may 
say of each and of all his doings, that this 
is done in the style and manner of a 
Christian. 

When a man becomes Christian, what 
we would ask is the most visible expres- 
sion of the change which has taken effect 
upon him? We are not speaking of the 
change in its essential. character, which 
is neither more nor less than a thorough 
and aspiring devotedness to the will of 
that God whom he now sees by the eye 
of faith to be reconciled to him through 
the blood of an everlasting covenant. 
The question we are putting relates to 
the seen effect of this principle upon the 
man’s outward habits and performances ; 
and we ask which is the most notable and 
conspicuous effect, and such as will most 
readily arrest the eye and the observation 


332 


of acquaintances 2— We know well what 
the general impression of the world is 
upon this subject. They think when a 
man undergoes that mysterious and@ un- 
accountable thing which is called con- 
version; the most palpable transforma- 
tion it makes upon him is to turn him 
into a psalm-singing, a church-going, an 
ordinance-keeping, and a prayer-making 
Christian, They positively do not look 
for such a change on the common and 
week-day history of this said convert, as 
they do on the style and character of his 
sabbath observations. But yet there is 
something that they will look for on week 
days too. They will look for a more 
decided aspect of sobriety. They will 
look for a more demure and melancholy 
seclusion from his old acquaintances. 
They will look for a clear and total re- 
nunciation of all that is intemperate, and 
of all that is licentious. They will look 
for a final adieu from those habits of in- 
toxication, of those habits of profligacy, or 
those habits of companionable indulgence, 
to which the young of every great city 
are introduced with a facility and a rea- 
diness so alarming to the heart of every 
Christian parent ; and in the prosecution 
of which they widen by every day of 
thouchtlessness their departure from God; 
and accumulate upon them the burden of 
his righteous indignation ; and lull their 
consciences into such a slumber, as to 
thousands and thousands more will at 
length sink and deepen into the sleep of 
death ; and bring the whole power of 
their example to bear upon the simple 
and the uninitiated. And thus does the 
tide of corruption maintain its unabated 
force and fulness from one period to ano- 
ther ; and is strengthened by yearly,con- 
tributions out of the wreck of youthful 
integrity ; and, did not the cheering light 
of prophecy assure us that through the 
omnipotence of a pure gospel better days 
of reformation and of virtue were to come, 
one would almost sit down in despair of 
ever making head against such a torrent 
- of combination and of example on the 

side of profligacy. Nor is this despair 
much alleviated, though some solitary 
case of repentance out of a hundred should 
now and then be offering itself to our 
contemplations ; and conscience should 
again lift its commanding voice within 
him, and be reinstated in that authority 


MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 


[SERM. 


which she had lost; and he, breaking 
off his sins by righteousness, should by 
an act of simple and determined abandon- 
ment brave the mockery of all his asso- 
ciates, and betake himself to the paths of 
peace and of prayer and of piety. 

Now, all the things of our text should 
lead an enlightened disciple to look foi 
more evidence than this ; and should lead 
a decided convert to exhibit more evi- 
dence than this. ‘he man who adorns 
the gospel in all things, will most cer- 
tainly be and do all that we have hereto- 
fore insisted on. But we regret that it 
should be so much the impression of the 
world, and so much the impression even 
of our plausible and well-looking profes- 
sors, that these form outward marks of 
such prominency as to throw all other 
outward marks into the shade; and to 
draw an almost exclusive regard towards 
sobriety of manners, and sobriety of ex- 
ternal observation, as forming the great 
and leading evidences of a now acquired 
Christianity. Now think, what prodi- 
gious effect it would give to the gospel, 
what an impressive testimony to its worth 
and excellence it would spread around 
the walk of every professor of it—did 
all that was undeviating in truth, all that 
was generous in friendship, all that was 
manly in principle, all that was untainted 
in honour, all that was winning in gen- 
tleness, all that was endearing in the 
graces and virtues of domestic society, 
all that was beneficent in public life, and 
all that was amiable in the unnoticed re- 
cesses of private history—did all these 
form into one beauteous corona of vir- 
tues and accomplishments, which might 
shed the lustre of Christianity over every 
field that is traversed by a professor of 
Christianity. ‘The name of a convert is 
at all times most readily associated with 
sobriety and sabbath-keeping. We should 
like that the conduct of the professors 
were such as to establish a still wider as- 
sociation. And if it is not, it is because 
professors have so wofully neglected the 
principle of our text. It is because they 
have made their Christianity one thing, 
and their civil business another. It is 
because they have separated religion 
from humanity, and missed a truth of 
most obvious and most commanding evi- 
dence—that there is not so much as a 
single half hour in the whole current of 


RXXIX. ] 


man’s history, which the gospel might 
not cheer by its comforts, or guide by its 
rules, or enlighten by its informations 
and its principles. Had every professing 
convert proceeded upon this, the associa- 
tion would have gone much farther than 
it has actually-done. It would have 
chrown a kind of universal emblazon- 
ment over the very name of Christianity. 
A man under the teaching of Jesus Christ 
could not be spoken of, without light- 
ing up in the heart every feeling of con- 
fidence and affection and esteem. And 
only conceive how it would go to aug- 
ment the power of this living and effi- 
cient testimony—did every man who 
plies his attendance upon church, and 
runs after sacraments, and whose element 
is to be hearing and talking of sermons, 


and the whole style of whose family re- 


gulation wears a complexion of sacred- 
ness—how it would tell with all: the om- 
nipotence of a charm upon the world, 
could we only have it to say of every 
such man—that the soul of honour and 
-mtegrity animated all his doings—that 
his every word and his every bargain 
were immutable—that not so much as a 
flaw or the semblance of an impeach- 
ment ever rested on any of his transac- 
tions—that if in business, you might re- 
65 upon him—that if in company, you 
ad nothing to fear from his pride, 
or his severity, or his selfishness—that 
if in the relations of neighbourhood, you 
might look for nothing from his hands 
but kindness and civility—that if in the 
officialities of public employment, yuu 
might see all the faithfulness of a man 
who felt the weight of duty and respon- 
sibility that were attached to it—that if 
the head of a family, you might behold 
the happiest attemperament of wisdom 
and of gentleness—and finally, that if in 
seTvice, you might commit to him the 
keepership of your all; you might give 
your suspicions and your jealousies to 
the wind; and, trusting to a fidelity 
which no opportunity can tempt, and no 
power of concealment can make to 
swerve from the line of honesty, you 
might review the whole subject of his 
guardianship, and find how to its mi- 
nutest particle that all was untouched 
and all was unviolated. 
This conducts us to the second lesson, 
which we proposed to draw from the 


MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 


333 


clause of adorning the doctrine of God 
our Saviour in all things. And that is 
that it is in the power of men and wo- 
men, in the most obscure and unnoticed 
ranks of society, to do a thing of far 
greater magnificence and glory, than 
can be done by all the resources of a 
monarch, by all the commanding influ- 
ence of wealth, by all the talents and 
the faculties of genius, by all the magic 
of utterance pouring forth its streams of 
eloquent and persuasive reasoning, by 
all grandeur, and all nobility, and all of: 
ficial consequence, when disjoined from 
Christian principle. Humble as ye are 
ye servants, there is a something ye can 
do which has all the greatness and ali 
the effect of eternity stamped upon it. 
There is a something ye can do which 
the King of Glory may put down as 
done unto Him, and by which ye can 
both magnify the name and carry for- 
ward the interests of the Sun of Righte- | 
ousness. There is a something ye can 
do by which you may be admitted into 
the high honour of being fellow work- 
ers with God—by which He to whom 
all power is committed both in heaven 
and earth, will own you as the auxil- 
iaries of His cause—by which ye may 
become the instruments of adding to the 
triumphs of the great Redeemer, and 
holding up His name to the world with 
the splendour of an augmented reputa- 
tion. O think what a distinction the 
once crucified but now exalted Saviour 
has conferred upon you. He has laid 
the burden of His honour and of His 
cause upon your shoulders. He has 
committed to you the task of adorning 
His doctrine. He has ennobled your 
every employment, by telling you that 
out of them all there may arise the 
moral lustre of such a principle and 
such a quality, as will reflect a credit 
upon Himself. And He who has done so 
much to exalt the station of a servant by 
taking the form of one on His own per- 
son, and by rendering under it such a 
service to Him who sitteth on the throne, 
as to have purchased for a sinful world 
all the securities and all the hopes and 
all the triumphs of their redemption, 
comes back upon you servants, now that 
he is exalted to the right hand of the 
most High, and tells you how much 
he looks to you for the glories of His 


834 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 


interest and of His name—how much 
He rests upon you for the illustration 
and the honour of His doctrine in the 
world. And as it was the work of the 
Son of God, when veiled in the humilia- 
tion of a servant, which set on foot the 
great plan of the world’s restoration—so 
is it still to the work of servants, to you 
my humbler brethren, the glories of 
whose immortal nature lie buried only 
for a few little years under the meanness 
and the drudgeries of your daily em- 
ployment—it is to you that He confides 
the helping forward of this mighty 
achievement, and the maintaining of its 
influence and of its glory from genera- 
tion to generation. 

It is in His name that we address you. 
We tell you, ye men-servants and ye 
maid-servants, from the sincerity of a 
heart that is most thoroughly penetrated 
with the truth and the importance of what 
we are now uttering, that you can do 
more for Christ in your respective fami- 
lies than we can possibly accomplish. 
We know not who your masters and 
mistresses are. But we know that there 
may be masters who scowl disdainfully 
on the business of the priesthood. We 
know that with the insolence of wealth, 
there may be some who despise the 
preaching of the cross, and make holiday 
of our sabbaths and our sacraments. We 
know that there may be some who come 
not here to have the doctrine of God our 
Saviour preached to them; and there- 
fore it is that we want you to do this 
business for us. You may do it in effect 
without the utterance of a single word on 
the subject of Christianity. You may 
do it by the living power of your exam- 
ple. You may do it by the impressive 
exhibition of a fidelity which no tempta- 
tion can seduce, and no lure of gain can 
cause to swerve from the line of a strict 
and undeviating integrity.. You may do 
it by a lesson of greater energy than all 
that human argument can press, or the 
magic of human eloquence can insinuate. 
You may let them see in the whole of 
your history, that the man among all 
their dependents who is most devoted to 
the service of the sanctuary, is also the 
most devoted to the service of his em- 
ployer; and the most tender of all his 
_ Interests; and the most observant of all 

his will. You may preachthem a daily 


[SERM, 


sermon by the daily exhibition of your 
faithfulness, and your attachment, and 
that. deep and duteous spirit of loyalty, 
which, with all the firm footing ofa reli- 
gious principle in your heart, leads you 
to be careful of all the trust he has com- 
mitted to you, and mindful of all his orders, 
and ever ready to meet his every wish 
and his every lawful imposition by the 
alacrity of your most assiduous and de- 
voted ministrations. The kingdom of 
God is not in word but in power. And 
even though your master should listen to 
the every demonstration which issues 
from the pulpit, he may retire day after 
day with a charmed ear, and an unawa- 
kened conscience, and the whole of the 
preacher’s eloquence may die away fror, 
his memory like the sound of a olebictns 
song. But you keep by him through the 
week, and a grateful sense of your value 
is ever forcing itself upon his convictions, 
And the inference that Christianity has a 
something of reality in its nature, may at 


times intrude itself among the multitude 


of his other thoughts and his other avo- 
cations. And his conscience may be ar- 
rested by the interesting visitation of such 
an idea. And that Spirit whom we call 
you to pray for on his behalf, may re- 
ward your example and your supplica- 
tions, by pressing the idea home, and 
pursuing him with its resistless influence, 
and opening through its power such an 
avenue to his heart, as may at length 
carry before it the whole of his desires 
and of his purposes. And in like man- 
ner as Christianity found its way into the 
household of Ceesar—so may you, my 
humbler brethren, find out a way for it 
into the houses of the wealthiest of our 
citizens ; and be the instruments of spread- 
ing it around among all those villas of 
magnificence, which skirt and which 
adorn the city of our habitation; and to 
you, clothed as ye are in the habiliments 
of servitude, and weighed down from 
morning to night by its drudgeries, and 
veiled as the greatness of your immortal 
aspirations is from the eye of the world 
—even upon you may this blessing in all 
its richness be realized, that as ye have 
turned men unto righteousness so shall 
ye shine as the stars for ever and ever. 
When we think of the lower orders 
of society, we cannot but think along 
with it, how high and how noble is the 


OP RY endibinty 


XXXIX.] 


Gospel estimate of that importance which 
belongs to them. Each of them carries 
in his bosom a principle of deathless 
energy, never to be extinguished. Each 
of them has a career of ambition opened 
up, lofty as heaven, and splendid as a 
crown of immortality. Each of them 
has an open way to Him who sitteth on 
the throne, through the mediation of Him 
who sitteth on the right hand of it. To 
them belongs the memorable distinction 
conferred by this utterance of the Eternal 
Son—that unto the poor the Gospel is 
preached. Each of them possesses a 
heart that may be regenerated by the in- 
fluences of the Spirit; and may be filled 
with all that is pure and all that is ele- 
vated in piety ; and may be turned into a 
residence for the finest and the loftiest 
emotions; and that, under the power of 
an evangelical culture, may be made to 
exemplify all that is respectable in worth, 
and all that is endearing in the nobler 
graces of Christianity. When worth 
and greatness meet in one imposing com- 
bination, there is a something ina spectacle 
so rare which draws the general eye of 
admiration along with it. But to the 
moral taste of some, and we profess our- 
selves to be of that number—there is a 
something still more touching, still more 
attractive, still more fitted to draw the eye 
of philanthropy, and to fill it with the 
images of beauty and peacefulness, in 
what we should call the virtues and the 
respectabilities of humble life—as a pious 
father, in the midst of a revering family 
—or the duteous offspring who rise 
around him, and are taught by his exam- 
ple to keep the Sabbaths of the Lord, and 
to love His ordinances—or the well- 
ordered household, the members of which 
are trained to all the decencies of Chris- 
tian conduct—or the frail and lowly tene- 
ment, where the voice of psalms is heard 
with the return of every evening, and the 
morning of the hallowed day collects all 
its inmates around the altar of domestic 
prayer. When such pictures as these 
occur in humble life, and sure we are 
that humble life is capable of affording 
them, who could think of withholding 
from them his testimony of readiest ad- 
miration? The man who, without any 
superiority of wealth whatever, has, by 
the pure force of character, gained a 
moral ascendency over the population of 


MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 


335 


his obscure neighbourhood, causes all 
earthly distinctions to vanish into insig- 
nificance before him. Now we aftirm 
that in the very poorest and most unno- 
ticed walks of society, such men are to be 
found ; that by the powerful application 
of Christian motives such men may be 
multiplied; that there exist throughout 
the wide mass of society all the imagina- 
ble capabilities of worth and excellence, 
and principle and piety ; that on the spa- 
cious field of a mighty harvest, which is 
on every side of us, there may be raised 
a whole multitude of converts, in whose 
hearts the principle of the Gospel shall 
have taken up its firm possession, and 
over the visible path of whose history the 
power of the Gospel may shed the lustre 
of some of the best and finest accom- 
plishments by which our nature can be 
adorned. 

We must not however pursue this 
speculation any farther. It is in the 
power of the servants, who now hear us, 
to turn it into a reality. We look to 
them for the vindication of all we have 
uttered ; and sure we are, that a faithful 
and an attached servant ; one who would 
maintain unseduced integrity, in the midst 
of manifold temptations; on whom the 
struggling force of principle would 
achieve a victory over the lure of every 
opportunity, and the certainty of every 
concealment ; who, nobly superior to all 
that is sordid, and sneaking, and artful, 
would protect his master’s interest as his 
own, and disdain to touch a single farth- 
ing of what was committed to him—why, 
we should never think of the rank of such 
a man—we should call him the cham- 
pion of his order, and feel how honoura- 
bly he had represented his own class of 
society—how he had asserted all their 
honours, and shown how elevation of 
soul and of sentiment belonged as essen- 
tially to them as to the wealthiest and 
most distinguished of the land—how he 
had evinced the wondrous capabilities of 
principle and of improvement which had 
existed over the wide mass of the popula- 
tion. And, taking him as a specimen, 
that the whole face of the community 
might be turned into a moral garden ; 
and that, in point of moral and spiritual 
importance, the poor, the despised, the 
unnoticed, the neglected poor, are to the 
full equal with all that was most lofty in 


336 


the rank, and all tnat was most splendid 
in the literature of society. 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 


[SERM. . 


‘from this moment, you are throwing the 
| gauntlet of defiance to a beseeching and 


We dismiss you, my friends, with the a commanding Saviour. But if other- 
remark—that this is no speculation of wise, He will not despise the humble of- 
ours. It is the call of the Saviour who fering of your obedience. He will putit 
died for you. It is He who, now that he down as done unto Him. He will re- 
has achieved your redemption, conde- | cognise youas fellow-helpers to his cause 
scends to ask a favour of you. He com- ‘and to his interest in the world. He will 
mits to you the adornment of his doctrine | accept of your prayers, because they are 
in the eyes of the world. And remem-|the prayers of them whose hands are 


ber that when you leave this church, and 
betake yourselves to the familiarities of 
your daily employment, though our eye 
cannot follow you, the eye of your Mas- 
ter in heaven is never away from you. 
He takes an interest in all your doings. 


clean and whose hearts are purged from 
their regard to all iniquity. You will 
grow in friendly and familiar intercourse 
with the great Mediator; and He will 
put down the very smallest items of your 
obedience as fruits of the love that you 


bear Him, and of the faith which worketh 
by love and which keepeth the command- 
ments. 


He registers the every hour and perform- 
ance of your history. If you suffer not 
this reflection to tell upon your conduct 


SERMON XL. 


The Importance of Civil Government to Socrety. 


What then ? are we better than they? ‘No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews 
and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one; 
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after Ged. They are all gone out 
of the way, they are together become unprofitable ; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 
Their throat is an open sepulchre ; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps 
is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; Their feet are swift to shed 
blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: 
There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know, that what things soever the law saith, 
it saith to them who are under law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may 
become guilty before God.”—Romans in. 9—19. 


Tuere are certain of these charges 
which can be brought more simply and 
speedily home in the way of conviction 
than certain others of them. Those 
which bring man more directly before 
the tribunal of God, can be made out 
more easily than those which bring him 
before the tribunal of his fellows. It were 
difficult to prove, that, in reference to 
man, there are not some of the species 
who have not something to glory of ; but 
it should not be so difficult to prove, that 
we have nothing to glory of before God. 
Now, the conclusion of the Apostle’s ar- 
gument in this passage is, that it is before 
God that all the world is guilty ; and if 
we, in the first instance, single out those 
rerses which place man before us in his 
simple relationship to the God who form- 
ed him, we ought not to find it a hard 


matter to carry the acquiescence of our 
hearers in the sentence which is here 
pronounced upon our guilty species. 

One of those verses is, that “there is 
none righteous, no, not one.” ‘To be held 
as having righteously kept the. law of our 
country, we must keep the whole of it. 
It is not necessary that we accumulate 
upon our persons the guilt of treason, 
and forgery, and murder, and violent 
depredation, ere we forfeit our lives to an 
outraged government. By one of these 
acts we incur just as dreadful and as en- 
tire a forfeiture as though guilty of them 
all. ‘The hundred deeds of obedience 
will not efface or expiate the one of diso- 
bedience; and we have only to plead for 
the same justice to a divine that we ren- 
der to a human administration, in order 
to convince every individual who now 


xu.) 


hears us, conscious, as he must be, of 
one, and several, and many acts of trans- 
gression against the law of God, that 
there is not one of them who is righteous 
before him. 

“There is none that understandeth, 
there 1s none that seeketh after God,” is 
another of these verses. We will venture 
to say of every man, without exception, 
who has not submitted himself to the 
great doctrine of this epistle, which is 
justification by faith, that there is not one 
‘ principle clearly intelligible even to his 
own mind, on which he rests his accept- 
ance with the God whom he has offended. 
He may have some obscure conception 
of His mercy, but he has never struck 
the compromise between His mercy and 
His justice. He has never braved the in- 
quiry, how is it possible that a sinner can 
be pardoned without a dissolution of 
God’s moral government? If he has 
ever taken up the question, “ What shall 
I do to be saved?” he has never, in the 
prosecution of it, looked steadily in the 
face at the Truth and Holiness of the 
Godhead. He has never extricated his 
condition as a sinner, from the dilemma 
of God’s conflicting attributes ; or appre- 
hended, to his own satisfaction, how it is 
that the dignity of Heaven’s throne can 
be upheld, amid the approaches of the 
polluted, who dare the inspection of eter- 
nal purity, and offer to come nigh, on the 
single presumption of God’s connivance 
at sin,—and a connivance founded too on 
the vague impression of God’s simple, 
and easy, and unresisting tenderness. 
What becomes of all that which stamps 
authority upon a law, and props the majes- 
ty of a Lawgiver, is a question that they 
have not resolved ; and that just because 
it is a question which they do not enter- 
tain. They are not’seeking to resolve it. 
That matter which appertains to the very 
essence of a sinnet’s salvation, is a matter 
of which they have no understanding 
and they do not care to understand it. 
They are otherwise taken up, and giving 
themselves no uneasiness upon the sub- 
ject. They, all their lives long, are 
blinking, and evading the questions 
which lie at the very turning point of 
that transition by which a sinner passes 
from a state of wrath into a state of accept- 
ance. ‘They hold the whole of this mat- 
ter in abeyance’ and the things of the 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, 


337 


world engross, and interest, and occupy, 
their whole hearts, tc the utter exclusion 
of Him who made the world. They are 
seeking after many things, but they are 
not seeking after God.—If you think 
that this is bearing too hard upon you, 
tell us what have been the times, and 
what the occasions, on which you have 
ever made the finding of God the distinct 
and the business object of your endeav- 
ours? When did you ever seek Him 
truly? When did your efforts in this 
way ever go beyond the spirit and the 
character of an empty round of observa- 
tions? What are the strenuous attempts 
you ever made to push the barrier which 
intercepts the guilty from the God whom 
they have rebelled against? If you are 
really and heartily seeking, you will find ; 
but, without the fear of refutation, do we 
affirm of al! here present who have not 
reached the Saviour, and are not in their 
way to Him, that none of you under- 
standeth, and none of you seeketh after 
God. 

“ They are all gone out of the way, 
they are together become unprofitable, 
there is none that doeth good; no, not 
one,’—is another of these verses. We 
do not say of the people whom we are 
now addressing, that they have gone out 
of the way of honour, or out of the way 
of equity, or out of the way of fair, and 
pleasant, and companionable neighbour- 
hood. But they, one and all of them, 
are out of the way of godliness. When 
the Prophet complains of our species, he 
does not affirm of them that they had 
turned every one to a way either of injus- 
tice or cruelty ; but he counts it condem- 
nation enough, that they had turned 
every one to his own way. It is iniquity 
enough in his eyes that the way in which 
we walk is our own way, and not God’s ; 
that in the prosecution of it we are sim- 
ply pleasing ourselves, and not asking or 
caring whether it be a way that is pleas- 
ing to Him; that the impelling princi- 
ple of what we do is our own will, and 
not His authority ; thatthe way in which 
we walk is a way of independence upon 
God, if not of iniquity against our fellows 
in society ; that it is the way of one who 
walks in the sight of his own eyes, and 
not of one who walks under the sight 
and in the service of another; that God, 
in fact, is as good as cast off from us; 


338 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 


[SERM. 


and we say what is tantamount to this, | against his own enemies. But yet it will 
that we will not have Him to reign over | be found, that though the picture of atro- 


us. This is the universal habit of Nature ; 
and if so, Nature is out of the way, and 
the world at large offers a monstrous ex- 
ception to the habit of the sinless and un- 


fallen, where all from the highest to the’ 


lowest, walk in that rightful subordina- 


tion which the thing that is formed’ 


should ever have towards Him who 
formed it. It is this which renders all the 
works of mere natural men so unprofita- 
ble, that is, of no value in the high count 
and reckoning of eternity. They want 
the great moral infusion which makes 
them valuable. There is nothing of God 
in them; having neither His will for 
their principle, nor the advancement of 
any one cause which His heart is set 
upon for their object. They may serve 
a temporary purpose. They may sheda 
blessing over the scenery of our mortal 
existence. They may minister to the 
good, and the peace, and the protection 
of society. ‘They may add to the sun- 
shine or the serenity of our little day 
upon earth; and yet be unprofitable, be- 
cause they yield no fruit unto immortal- 
ity. Destitute as they all are of godliness, 
they are destitute of goodness. ‘They 
have not the essential spirit of this attri- 
bute pervading them. And though many 
there are to whom the preaching of the 
cross is foolishness, and who have reached 
a lofty estimation in the walks of in- 
tegrity and honour, and even of philan- 
thropy and patriotism, yet, with the taint 
of earthliness which vitiates all they do, 
in the estimation of Heaven’s Sanctuary 
there is none of them that doeth good ; no, 
not one. 

We now pass onward to another set of 
charges, which it may be not so easy to 
substantiate on the ground of actual ob- 
servation. ‘They consist of highly atro- 
cious offences against the peace and the 
dearest interests of society. It is true, 
that the apostle here drops the style of 
universality which he so firmly sustains 
in the foregoing part of his arraignment, 
when he speaks of all being out of the 
way ; and of none, no, not one, being to 
be found on the path of godliness. And 
it is further true, that, in the subsequent 
prosecution of his charges, he quotes se- 
veral expressions which David made use 
of, not against the whole species, but 


city here drawn may not in our day be 
so broadly exhibited as in the ruder and 
more barbarous periods of this world’s 
history, yet, that the principles of it are 
still busily at work; and though hu- 
manity be altered a little in its guise, it 
is not, apart from the gospel, at all altered 
in its substance; that though softened 
down into a somewhat milder complexion, 
its fiercer elements are not therefore ex- 
tinguished, but only lie for a time in a 
sort of slumbering concealment; that 
though law and civilization, and a more 
enlightened sense of interest, may have 
stopped the mouth of many a desolating 
volcano, which would else have marred 
and wasted the face of society, yet do the 
fiery materials still exist in the bosom of 
society. It is religion alone which will 
kill the elementary principles of human 
wickedness, and every expedient short of 
religion will do no more than restrain the 
ebullition of them. So that, dark as the 
scriptural representation of our nature is; 
and though here personified by the A pos- 
tle into a monster, whose delight is in the 
most foul and revolting abominations ; 
with a throat like an open sepulchre, 
emitting contempt, and hatred, and envy, 
and every thing offensive ; and a tongue 
practised in the arts of deceitfulness ; 
and lips from which the gall of malig- 
nity ever drops in unceasing distillation ; 
and a mouth full of venomous asperity ; 
and feet that run to assassination as a 
game; and with the pathway on which 
she runs marked by the ruin and dis- 
tress that attend upon her progress ; and 
with a disdainful aversion in her heart to 
the safety and ingloriousness of peace; 
and, finally, with an aspect of defiance 
to the God that called her into being, and 
gave all her parts and all her energies— 
though this sketch of our nature was ori- 
ginally taken by the Psalmist from the 
prowling banditti that hovered on the con- 
fines of Judea, yet has the Apostle, by 
admitting it nto his argument, stamped a 
perpetuity upon it, and made it universal, 
—giving us to understand, that if such 
was the character of man, as it stood na- 
kedly out among the rude and resentful 
hostilities of a barbarous people, such 
also is the real character of man amon 

the glosses, and the regularities, an 


XL.] 


the monotonous decencies of modern 
society. 

There is one short illustration which 
may help you to comprehend this. You 
know that oaths were more frequent at 
one time than they are now in the con- 
versation of the higher classes, and that 
at present it is altogether a point of po- 
‘liteness to abstain from the utterance of 
them. It is a point of politeness, we fear, 

~more than a point of piety. There may 
be less of profaneness in their mouths, 
while there may be as much as ever in 
in their hearts ; and when the question is 
~ between God and man, and with a view 
to rate the godliness of the latter, do you 
think that this is at all alleviated by a 
mere revolution of taste about the propri- 
eties of fashionable intercourse? There 
may be as little of religion in the discon- 
tinuance of swearing, when that is 
brought about by a mere fluctuation in 
the mode or bon ton of society, as there 
is of religion in the adoption of a new 
dress, or a new style of entertainment. 
And, in like manner, murder in the act 
may be less frequent now, while, if he 
who hateth his brother be a murderer, it 
may be fully as foul and frequent in the 
principle ; and theft, in the shape of vio- 
lent and open depredation, be no longer 
practised by him who gives vent to an 
equal degree of dishonesty through the 
chicaneries of merchandize; and that 
malice which wont in other times to pour 
itself forth in resentful outcry, or vulgar 
execration, may now find its sweet and 
secret gratification in the conquests of a 
refined policy ; and thus may there lurk 
under the soft and placid disguises of 
well-bred citizenship, just as much of un- 
feeling deceit, and unfeeling cruelty, as 
were ever realized in the fiercer contests 
of savage warfare, so as to verify the esti- 
mate of our apostle, even when applied 
to the character of society in modern 
days, and to make it as evident with the 
duties of the second table as it is with the 
first, that in every thing man has wan- 
dered far from the path of rectitude, and 
in every thing has fallen short of the 
glory of God. 

The truth is, there is much in the 
whole guise of modern society that is fit- 
ted to hide from human eyes the real de- 
formity of the human character. We 
think that, apart from Christianity, the 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 


339 


falsehood and ferocity of our species are 
essentially the same with what they were 
in the most unsettled periods of its his- 
tory—that, however moulded into a dif- 
ferent form, they retain all the strength 
and substance that they ever had—and 
that, if certain restraints were lifted away, 
certain regulations which have their hold 
not upon the principle, but upon the sel- 
fishness of our nature: then would the 
latent propensities of man again break 
forth into open exhibition, and betray 
him to be the same guileful, and rapa- 
cious, and vindictive creature he has ever 
shown himself to be, -in those places of 
the earth where government had not yet 
introduced its restraints. and civilization 
had not yet introduced 1s disguises. 

And even when society has sat down 
into the form of a peaceful and well-or- 
dered commonwealth, will it be seen that 
the evil of the human heart, though it 
come not forth so broadly and so outrage- 
ously as before, is just aS active in its 
workings, and just as unsubdued in its 
principle as ever. We apprehend that 
man to be mainly ignorant of life, and to 
be unpractised or untaught among the 
collisions of human intercourse, who is 
not aware that even among our politest 
circles, smoothed as they may be into 
perfect decorum, and graced by the smile 
of soft and sentimental courtesy, there 
may lurk all the asperities and heart-burn- 
ings so honestly set forth by our Apostle ; 
and that even there the artful malignity 
of human passion finds, in slanderous in- 
sinuations, and the devices of a keen and 
dexterous rivalry, its effectual vent for 
them. And little has he experienced of 
the trick and treachery of business, who 
thinks that, in the scramble of its eager 
competitions, less deceit is now used with 
the tongue, than in the days when the 
Psalmist was compassed round with the 
snares of his adversaries. And slightly 
has he reflected on the true character, 
that often beams out from beneath the 
specious fallacy which lies over it, who 
does not perceive that there may, even 
with law, be as determined a spirit of in- 
justice, among the frauds and the forms 
of bankruptcy, as that which in the olden 
time, and without law, carried violence 
and rapine into a neighbour’s habitation 
And there is a lack of insight with him 
who thinks, that in civilized war..with all 


340 


its gallant courtesies, and all its mani- 
festos of humane and righteous protesta- 
tion, there may not be the same kindling 
for the fray, and the same appetite for 
blood, that gives its fell and revengeful 
sweep to the tomahawk of Indians. There 
is another dress and another exterior 
upon society than before ; but be assured, 
that in so far as it respects the essentials 
ef human character, the representation 
of the Apostle is still the true one. What- 
ever were the deceitful, or whatever were 
the murderous propensities of man, three 
thousand years ago, they have descended 
to our present generation; and we are 
not sure but that, through the regular 
vents of war, and of bankruptcy, there 
is as full scope for their indulgence as 
ever. There may be achange in the mode 
of these iniquities, without any change 
at all inthe matter of them ; and after all 
that police, and refinement, and the 
kindly operation of long pacific inter- 
course, have done to humanize the aspect 
of these latter days, we are far from sure 
whether upon the displacement of certain 
guards and barriers of security, the slum- 
bering ferocities of man might not again 
announce their existence, and break out, 
as before, into open and declared violence. 

All this, while it gives a most humil- 
lating estimate of our species, should 
serve to enhance to our minds the bless- 
ings of regu.ar Government. And it 
were curious to question the agents of po- 
lice upon this subject, the men who are 
stationed at the place of combat and 
of guardianship, with those who have cast 
off the fear of God, and cast off also the 
fear of man to such a degree, as to be ever 
venturing across the margin of human le- 
gality. Let the most observant of all 
these public functionaries simply depone 
to the effect it would have,’even upon our 
mild and molern society, were this guar- 
dianship dissolved. Would it not be evi- 
dent to him, and is it not equally evident 
to you all, that the artificial gloss which 
‘now overspreads the face of it would 
‘speedily be dissipated ; and that, under- 
neath, would the character of man be sure 
to stand out in far nearer resemblance to 
that sketch, however repulsive, which 
the inspired writer has here offered of 
our species? Were anarchy the order 
‘of our day, and the lawless propensities 
‘of man permitted to’ stalk abroad in this 


IMPORTANCE JF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 


[SERM, 


the season of their, wild emancipation ; 
were all the restraints of order driven in, 
and human strength and human fierce- 
ness were to ride in triumph over the 
prostrate authorities of the land; were 
the reigning will of our country, at this 
moment, the will of a spontaneous mult? 
tude, doing every man of them, in rud¢ 
and random ebullitions, what was right 
in his own eyes ; with just such a fear of 
our heavenly superior as now exists in 
the world, but with all fear and reverence 
for earthly superiors taken away from it; 
let us just ask you to conceive the effect 
of such a state of things, and then to com- 
pute how little there is of moral, and how 
much there is of mere animal restraint in 
the apparent virtues of human society. 
There is a twofold benefit in such a con- 
templation. It will enhance to every 
Christian mind the cause of loyalty, and 
lead him to regard the power that is, as 
the minister of God to him for good. 
And it will also guide him through many 
delusions to appreciate justly the charac- 
ter of man; to distinguish aright between 
the semblance of principle and its reality ; 
and to gather, from the surveys of experi- 
ence, a fresh evidence for the truth of those 
Scriptures, which speak so truly of hu- 
man sinfulness, and point out so clearly 
the way of human salvation. 

But it is not necessary, for the purpose 
of identifying the character of man, as it 
now is, with what the character of man 
was, in its worst features, in the days of 
the Royal Psalmist, to make out by evi- 
dence a positive thirst after blood on the 
part of any existing class in society. We 
are not sure that it was any native or ab- 
stract delight in cruelty which prompted 
the marauders of other days to deeds of 
violence. Place a man in circumstances 
of ease and of self-complacency, and he 
will revolt from the infliction of unneces- 
sary pain, just as the gorged and satiated 
animal of prey will suffer the traveller to 
pass without molestation. It forms no 
part of our indictment against the species, 
that his appetite for blood urges him on- 
wards to barbarity, but that his appetite 
for other things will urge him on to it; 
and that if, while he had these, things, he 
would rather abstain from the death of 
his fellow-men, yet, rather than want 
these things, he would inflict it. It is not 
that his love of cruelty is the originating 


xu] 


appetite which carries him forward to 
deeds of cruelty, but that his abhorrence 
of cruelty is not enough to arrest the force 
of other appetites, when they find that hu- 
man life lies in the way of their gratifica- 
tion. The feet of the borderers of Judea 
made haste to shed blood; but, just be- 
cause, like the borderers of our own land, 
their love of booty could only be indulged 
with human resistance among human 
habitations. And were these days of 
public licentiousness again to return— 
were the functions of government sus- 
pended, and the only guarantee of peace 
and of property were the native rectitude 
- of the species—did the power of anarchy 
achieve its own darling object of a jubilee 
all over the country for human wilfulness; 
and in this way were, not the past inclin- 
ations revived, but just the present inclina- 
tions of man let loose upon society—a 
single month would not elapse, ere scenes 
of as dread atrocity were witnessed, as 
those which the Psalmist has recorded, 
and those which the Apostle has trans- 
mitted, as the exemplars, not of practical, 
but of general humanity. ‘The latent ini- 
quities of the human heart would reap- 
pear just as soon as the compression of 
human authority was lifted away from 
them ; and these streets be made to flow 
with the blood of the most distinguished 
of our citizens ; and the violence at first 
directed against the summit of society, 
would speedily cause the whole frame of 
it to totter into dissolution ; and in this 
our moral and enlightened day it would 
be found, that there was enough of crime 
in the country to spread terror over all its 
provinces, and to hold its prostrate fami- 
lies in bondage ; and with such a dreary 
interregnum of tumlt, and uproar, and 
vagrancy, as this, would there be a page 
of British history as deeply crimsoned 
over, as are the darkest annals of the bar- 


barity of our species—all proving, how | 


indispensable the ordinance of human 
government is to the well-being of socie- 
ty ; but also proving, that if it be the will, 
and the inward tendency, and the unfetter- 
ed principle, which constitute the real ele- 
ments of the character of man, this char- 
acter has only been coloured into another 
hue, without being transformed into an- 
other essence, by an ordinance which can 
only keep its elements in check, but never 
can extinguish them. 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 





34. 


And on applying the spiritual touch- 
stone of the gospel, may we perhaps 
fasten a similar charge on many in so- 
ciety, who never suspected it possible 
that they had any part in the Apostle’s 
dark representation of our foul and fallen 
nature. Even in the wildest scenes of 
anarchy, it may not be the love of cru- 
elty, but the love of power or of plunder, 
which leads men to the most revolting 
abominations of cruelty. It is not so 
much a ravenous desire after human 
blood, as a regardlessness about it, which 
stamps a savage barbarity on the charac- 
ters of men. It is their regard for the 
objects of avarice and ambition, coupled 
with their regardlessness about the quan- 
tity of human life, that les in the way 
of them ; which is enough to account for 
deeds of atrocity as monstrous as ever 
were committed, either by bloody tyrants, 
or ferocious multitudes. Now, may not 
this regard on the one hand, and this re- 
gardlessness on the other, be fully exem- 
plified by him who looks with delight on 
the splendid reversion that awaits him, 
and cares not how soon the death of his 
aged relative may bring it to his door? 
And may it not be exemplified by him 
who, all in a tumult with military glee, 
and the visions of military glory, longs 
for some arena crowded with the fellows 
of his own sentient nature, on which he 
might bring the fell implements of de- 
struction to bear, and so signalize him- 
self in the proud lists of chivalry or pa- 
triotism 2 And most striking of all per- 
haps, may it not be exemplified, by the 
most gentle and pacific of our citizens, 
who, engrossed with the single appetite 
of fear, and under the movements of no 
other regard than a regard to his own 
security, might listen with secret satis- 
faction to the tale of the many hundreds 
of the rebellious who had fallen—and 
how the sweep of fatal artillery, or the 
charge of victorious squadrons, told with 
deadly execution on the flying multitude ? 
We are not comparing the merits of the 
cause of order, which are all triumphant 
with those of anarchy; the inscribed 
ensigns of which are as hateful to every 
Christian eye, as ever to the Jews of old 
was the abomination of desolation spoken 
of by Daniel the Prophet. We are 
merely expounding the generalities of a 
nature, trenched upon every side of it in 


342 


deceitfulness; and where, unuer the 
gloss of many plausibilities, there lurk, 
unsuspected, and unknown, ali the rudi- 
ments of depravity: and through the in- 
tricacies of which, he who saw with the 
eye of inspiration could detect a perma- 
nent and universal taint, both of selfish- 
ness and of practical atheism. The pic- 
ture that he has drawn will bear to be 
confronted with the humanity of modern 
as well as of ancient days; and, though 
taken off at first from the ruder speci 
wens of our kind, yet, on a narrow in- 
spection, will it be found to be substan- 
tiated among the delicate phases of our 
more elegant and artificial society ; so as 
that every mouth should be stopped, and 
the whole world be brought in guilty be- 
fore God. 

In looking to the present aspect of so- 
ciety, it is not easy so to manage our ar- 
gument as to reach conviction among 
all, that all are guilty before God ; and 
that, unknowing of it themselves, there 
may be the lurking principles of what is 
dire in human atrocity, even under the 
blandest exhibitions of our familiar and 
every-day acquaintanceship. But, as 
there are degrees of guilt, and as these 
are more or less evident to human eyes, 
it would. perhaps, decide the identity of 
our present generation, with those of a 
rude and savage antiquity, could we run 
along the scale of actual wickedness that 
is before us, and fasten upon an exemphi- 
fication of it so plainly and obviously de- 
testable as to vie with all that is recorded 
of the villany of our species in former 
ages of the world. And such a one has 
occurred so recently, that there is not 
one here present who, upon the slightes' 
allusion, will not instantly recognise it. 
We speak not of those who have openly 
spoken, and that beyond the margin of 
legality, against the government of our 
land. We speak not of those who have 
clamoured so loudly, and lifted so open 
a front of hostility to the laws, as to have 
brought down upon them the hand of 
public vengeance. We speak not even 
of those who, steeled to the purposes of 
blood went forth to kill and to destroy, 
and, found with the implements of vio- 
lence in their hands, are now awaiting 
the sentence of an earthly tribunal on 
the enormity into which they have fallen. 
But we speak to our men of deeper con- 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 


[SERM 


trivance; to those wary and unseen 
counseilors who have so coolly conducted 
others to the brunt of a full exposure, 
and then retired so cautiously within the 
shelter of their own cowardice; those 
men of print and of plot, and of privacy, 
in whose hands the other agents of re- 
bellion were nothing better than slaves 
and simpletons; those men ‘of skill 
enough for themselves, to go thus far, 
and no farther, and of cruelty enough 
for others, as to care not how many they 
impelled across the verge of desperation ; 
those men who have made their own 
harvest of the passions of the multitude, 
and now skulk in their hiding places, 
till the storm of vengeance that is to 
sweep the victims of their treachery from 
the land of the living shall have finally 
blown away; those men who spoke a 
patriotism which they never felt, and 
shed their serpent tears over sufferings 
which never drew from their bosoms one 
sigh of honest tenderness. ‘ll us, if 
out of the men who thus have trafficked 
in delusion, and, in pursuance of their 
unfeeling experiment, have entailed want 
and widowhood upon families, there may 
not as dark a picture of humanity be 
drawn as the Psalmist drew out of the 
rude materials that were around him: 
And, after all that civilization has done 
for our species, and all that smoothness 
of external aspect into which govern- 
ment has moulded the form of society ; 
is it not evident, that upon the slightest 
relaxation of its authority, and the faint- 
est prospect of its dissolution and over- 
throw, there is lying in reserve as much 
of untamed and ruthless ferocity in our 
land, as, if permitted to come forth, would 
lift an arm of bloody violence, and scat- 
ter all the cruelties of the reign of terror 
among its habitations ?* 

These are rather lengthened illustra- 
tions in which we have indulged; but 
who can resist the temptation that offers 
itself, when an opening is given for ex- 
hibiting the accordancy that obtains be- 
tween the truth of observation, and the 
averments of scripture; when facts are 
before us, and such a use-of them can be 
made, as that of turning them into ma- 


* This Sermon was preached in 1820, after 
the suppression of a rebellious movement in Scot- 
land. 


x] 


terials by which to strengthen the foun- 
dations of orthodoxy ; and when, out of 
scenes which rise with all the freshness 
of recency before us, it can be shown 
how the sturdy apostolic doctrine will 
bear to be confronted with every new 
display, and every new development of 
human experience? And, ere we have 
done, we should like to urge three les- 
sons upon you, from all that has been 
said; the first with a view to set your 


theology upon its right basis; and the 


second with a view to set your loyalty 
upon its right basis; and the third with 
a view to impress a right practical move- 
ment on those who hold a natural or 
political ascendancy in our land. 

I. First, then, as to the theology of 
this question. We trust you perceive 
how much it is, and how little it is, that 
can be gathered from the comparative 
peace and gentleness of modern society ; 
how much the protection of familiés is 
due to the physical restraints that are 
laid on by this world’s government, and 
how little is due to the moral restraints 
that are laid on by the unseen govern- 
ment of Heaven ; how little the existing 
safety of our commonwealth, both from 
crime and turbulence, is owing to the 
force of any considerations which are 
addressed to the principle of man, and 
how much of it is owing to the force of 
such considerations as are addressed to 
man’s fears and man’s selfishness ;—all 
proving, that if human nature, in this our 
age, do not break forth so frequently and 
so outrageously into violence as in other 
ages that have gone by, it is only because 
it is shackled, and not because it is tamed. 
It is more like the tractableness of an an- 
imal led about by a chain than of an an- 
imal inwardly softened into a docility and 
a mildness which did not formerly belong 
to it. Itis due, without doubt, to the in- 
fluence of a very strong and very saluta- 
ry counteraction ; but it is a counterac- 
tion that has been formed out of the inte- 
rest of man, and not out of the fear of 
God. It is due, not to the working of 
that celestial machinery which bears on 
the spiritual part of our constitution, but 
to the working of another machinery 
most useful for the temporary purpose 
which it serves, yet only bearing on the 
material and worldly part of our constitu- 
ion. On this point, observation and or- 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 


343 


thodoxy are at one; and one of the most 
convincing illustrations which the Apos- 
tle can derive to his own doctrine, ma 
be taken from the testimony of those who, 
in the shape of legal functionaries, are 
ranged along that line of defence, over 
which humanity, with its numerous out- 
breakings of fraud, and rapacity, and 
violence, is ever passing. Let them sim- 
ply aver, on their own experimental feel- 
ing, what the result would be, if all the 
earthly safeguards of law and of govern- 
ment were driven away from the rampart 
at which they are stationed ; and they are 
just preaching orthodoxy to our ears, 
and lending us their authority to one of 
its articles, when they tell us, that upon 
such an event the whole system of social 
life would go into unhingement, and that, 
in the wild uproar of human _ passions 
which would follow, kindness, and confi- 
dence, and equity, would take their rapid 
flight from human habitations. 

II. But, secondly, the very same train 
of argument which goes to enlighten the 
theology of this subject, serves also to 
deepen and to establish within us all the 
principles of a most devoted loyalty. 
That view of the human character, upon 
which it is contended, by the divine, that 
unless it is regenerated there can be no 
meetness for heaven, is the very same 
with that view of the human character 
upon which it is contended, by the politi- 
cian, that unless it is restrained there will 
be no safety from crime and violence 
along the course of the pilgrimage which 
leads to it. An enlightened pilgrim re- 
cognises the hand of God in all the shel- 
ter that is thrown over him from the fury 
of the natural elements; and he equally 
recognises in it all the shelter that is 
thrown over him from the fury of the 
moral elements by which he is surround- 
ed. Had hea more favourable view of 
our nature, he might not look on govern- 
ment as so indispensable; but, with the 
view that he actually has, he cannot miss 
the conclusion of its being the ordinance 
of Heaven for the church’s good upon 
earth ; and that thus a canopy of defence 
is drawn over the heads of Zion’s travel. 
lers ; and they rejoice in the authority of 
human laws as an instrument in the hand 
of God for the peace of their Sabbaths, 
and the peace of their sacraments ; and 
they deprecate the anarchy that would 


344 IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 


ensue from the suspension of them, with 
as much honest principle, as they would 
deprecate the earthquake that might in- 
gulf, or the hurricane that might sweep 
away their habitations; and, aware of 
what humanity is, when left to itself, they 
accept, as a boon from heaven, the me- 
chanism which checks the effervescence 
of all those fires that would else go forth 
to burn up and to destroy. 

This, at all times the feeling of every 
enlightened Christian, must have been 
eminently and peculiarly so at that time 
when our recent alarms were at the 
greatest height. It was the time of our 
sacrament ; and, to all who love its ser- 
vices, must it. have been matter of grateful 
rejoicing, that, by the favour of Him who 
sways the elements of Nature, and the as 
uncontrollable elements of human society, 
we were permitted to finish these services 
in peace; that, in that feast of love and 
good-will, we were not rudely assailed 
by the din of warlike preparation ; that, 
ere sabbath came, the tempest alarm, 
which had sounded so fearfully along the 
streets of our city, was hushed into the 
quietness of sabbath ; so that, like as if in 
the midst of sweetest landscape, and 
amongst a congregation gathered out of 
still and solitary hamlets, and with no- 
thing to break in upon the deep repose 
and tranquillity of the scene, save the 
voice of united praise from an assembly 
of devout and revering worshippers, were 
we, under the protection of an arm 
stronger than any arm of flesh, and at 
the bidding of a voice more powerful than 
that of mighty conquerors suffered to en- 
joy the pure and peaceful ordinances of 
our faith, with all the threats and all the 
outcries of human violence kept far away 
from us. 

It was the apprehension of many, that 
it might have been otherwise. And, what 
ought to be their enduring gratitude, 
when, instead of the wrath of man let 
loose upon our families; and a devoted 
city given up to the frenzy and the fierce- 
ness of a misguided population; and the 
maddening outcry of combatants plying 
against each other their instruments of 
destruction ; and the speed of flying mul- 
titudes, when the noise of the footmen and 
the noise of the horsemen gave dreadful 
intimation of the coming slaughter; and 
the bursting conflagration, in various 


[SERM. 


quarters, marking out where the fell em 
issaries of ruin were at work; and the 
shock, and the volley, and the agonies of 
dying men, telling the trembling inmates 
of every household, thatthe work of desper- 
ation had now begun upon the streets, and 
might speedily force its way into all the 
dwelling-places :—this 1s what that God, 
who has the elements of the moral world 
at command, might have visited on a 
town which has witnessed so many a 
guilty sabbath, and harbours within its 
limits the ungodliness of so many profane 
and alienated families—In what precious- 
ness, then, ought that sabbath to be held; 
and what a. boon from the kindness of 
long-suffering Heaven should we regard 
its quietness ; when, instead of such deeds 
of vengeance between townsmen and their 
fellows, they walked together in peaceful 
society to the house of prayer, and sat in 
peacefulness together at its best loved or- 
dinance. 

The men who prize the value of this 
protection the most, are the men who feel 
most the need of human government, and 
who most revere it as an ordinance of 
God. Such is their opinion of the heart, 
that they believe, unless it be renewed by 
divine grace, there can be no translation 
into a blessed eternity ; and such is their 
opinion of the heart, that they believe, un 
less its native inclinations be repressed by 
human government, there can be no calm 
or protected passage along the track of 
conveyance in this world. ‘Their loyalty 
emerges from their orthodoxy. With 
them it has all the tenacity of principle ; 
and is far too deeply seated to be laid 
prostrate among the fierce and guilty agi- 
tations of the tumultuous. ‘They have no 
part in the rancour of the disaffected ; and 
they have no part in the ambitiousness of 
the dark and daring revolutionist; and 
seeking, as they do, to lead a quiet and a 
peaceable life, in all godliness and hones- 
ty, a season of turbulence is to them a 
season of trial, and would be a season of 
difficulty, had they not the politics of the 
Bible to guide their way among the 
threats and the terrors of surrounding 
desperadoes. ‘“ Honour the king, and 
meddle not with those who are given to 
change,” are the indelible duties of a re- 
cord that is indelible; and they stamp a 
sacredness upon Christian loyalty. They 
are not at liberty to cancel what God has 


XL] IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 345 
enacted. and to expunge what God hasj sist shall receive to themselves damnation. 
written. ‘They are loyal because they are | Wherefore, ye must needs be subject. not 


religions ; to suffer in such a cause is 
persecution, to die in it is martyrdom. 
There is a mischievous delusion on 
this subject. In the minds of many, and 
these too men of the first influence and 
station in the country, there is a haunting 
agsociation which still continues to mis- 
lead them, even in the face of all evidence, 
and of all honest and credible protesta- 
tion ; and in virtue of which they, to this 
very hour, conceive that such a religion 
as they call methodism, is the invariable 
companion of a plotting, artful, and rest- 
less democracy. This is truly unfortu- 
nate; for the thing called methodism is 
neither more nor less than Christianity in 
earnest; and yet they who so call it, 


have it most honestly at heart to promote | 


the great object of a peaceful, and virtu- 
ous, and well-conditioned society; and 
not therefore their disposition, which is 
right, but their apprehension upon this 
topic which is egregiously wrong, has 
just had the effect of bending the whole 
line of their patronage and policy the 
wrong way. And thus are they unceas- 
ingly employed in attempting to kill, asa 
noxious plant, the only element which 
can make head against the tide of -irreli- 
gion and blasphemy in our land; con- 
ceiving, but most woefully ‘wide of the 
truth in so conceiving, that there is a cer- 
_ tain approving sympathy between the 
sanctity of the evangelical system, and 
the sedition that so lately bas derided and 
profaned it. The doctrinal Christianity 
of this very epistle would be called meth- 
odistical by those to whom we are now 
alluding; but sure we are, that the disci- 
ple who goes along with Paul, while he 
travels in argument through the deeper 
mysteries of faith, will not abandon him 
when, in the latter chapters of his work, 
he breaks forth into that efflorescence of 
beautiful and perfect morality with which 
he winds up the whole of his wondrous 
demonstration ; but will observe the bid- 
den conduct as a genuine emanation of 
the expounded creed—when told, that 
every soul should be subject unto the 
higher powers, and that there is no pow- 
er but of God, and that the powers which 
be are ordained of God. And whosoever, 
therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth 
the ordinance of God ; and they that re- 
44 


only for wrath, but also for conscience’ 
sake. 

III. We venture to affirm, that it is 
just the want of this Christianity in earn- 
est which has brought our nation to the 
brink of an emergency so fearful as that 
upon which we are standing. When 
Solomon says, that it is righteousness 
which exalteth a nation, he means some- 
thing of a deeper and more sacred char- 
acter than the mere righteousness of so- 
ciety. ‘This last may be learned in the 
school of classical or of civil virtue; and an 
argument may be gathered in its behalf 
even from the views of an enlightened 
selfishness ; and, all lovely as it is in ex- 
hibition, may it draw from the tasteful ad- 
mirers of what is fine in character even 
something more than a mere nominal ac- 
knowledgment. It may carry a certain 
extent of practical conformity over the 
real and living habits of those who, fault- 
less in honour, and uprightness, and loy- 
alty, are nevertheless devoid of the reli- 
gious principle altogether ; and who, so 
far from being tainted with methodism, 
in the sense of that definition which we 
have already given of it, would both re- 
pudiate its advances upon their own fam- 
ily, and regret any visible inroads it 
might make on our general population. 

That Solomon does mean something 
more than the virtues to which we are 
now alluding, is evident we think from 
this circumstance. The term righteous- 
ness, admits of a social and relative ap- 
plication, and in this application, may in- 
troduce a conception into the mind that 
is exclusive of God. But the same can- 
not be said of the term sin. ‘This gen- 
erally suggests the idea of God as the 
Being sinned against. ‘The one term 
does not so essentially express the idea of 
conformity to the divine law, as the other 
term expresses the idea of transgression 
against it. It does not carry up the mind 
so immediately to God; because, with 
the utter absence of Him from our 
thoughts, may it still retain a substance 
and a significancy, as expressive of what 
is held to be right in a community of hu- 
man beings. It is well, then, that the 
clause, “ Righteousness exalteth a na- 
tion,” is followed up by the clause, “ But 
sin is a. reproach to any people ;’ and 





346 


that thus the latter term, which is equiva- 
lent to ungodliness by the contrast in 
which it stands with the former term, 
leads us to the true import of the first of 
these two clauses, and gives us to under- 
stand Solomon as saying, that it is godli- 
ness that exalteth a nation. 

Cut away the substratum of godliness, 
and how, we ask, will the secondary and 
the earth-born righteousness be found to 
thrive on the remaining soil which na- 
ture supplies for rearing it? It is an 
error to think that it will make a total 
withdrawment of itself from the world. 
{t will still be found, in straggling speci- 
mens, among some sheltered and conge- 
nial spots even of this world’s territory— 
at times among the haunts of lettered en- 
thusiasm ; and at times on the elevated 
stage of rank which stands forth to public 
notice, or of an opulence which is raised 
above the attacks of care and of tempta- 
tion; and, at times, on the rarely-occur- 
ring mould of a native equity, when, in 
middle and comfortable life, the rude ur- 
gencies of want and of vulgar ambition 
do not overbear it. Even there it will 
grow but sparingly, without the influ- 
ences of the gospel; as it did in those 
ages, and as it still does in those countries 
where the gospel is unknown. But, if 
you step down from those moral eminen- 
ces, or if you come out from those few 
sweet and kindred retirements, where 
the moral verdure has stood, unblighted, 
even in the absence of Christianity, and 
thence go forth among the ample spaces, 
and the wide, and open, and general ex- 
posures of society; if, on the arena of 
common life, you enter the teeming fami- 
lies of the poor, and hold converse with 
the mighty host who scarcely know an 
interval between waking hours of drudg- 
ery and hours of sleeping unconscious- 
ness ; if, passing away from the abodes 
of refinement, you mingle with the many 
whose feelings and whose faculties are 
alike buffeted in the din and the dizzying 
of incessant labour—we mean to affix no 
stigma on the humbler brethren of our 
nature; but we may at least be suffered 
to say, that among the richest of fortune 
and accomplishment in our land, we 
know not the individual whose virtues, 
if transplanted into the unkindlier region 
of poverty, would have withstood the 
operation of all the adverse elements to 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. . 


| manity. 





[SERM. 


which it is exposed,—unless upheld by 
that very godliness which he perhaps dis- 
owns, that very methodism on which per- 
haps he pours the cruelty of his derision. 
And here it may be remarked, how 
much the taste of many among the higher 
orders of society, is at war with the best 
security that can be devised for the peace 
and well-being of society. There are 
many among them who admire the blos- 
soms of virtue, while they dislike that 
only culture which can spread this lovely 
efflorescence over the whole field of hu- 
They advert not to this—that 
the virtue which is cradled in the lap of 
abundance, and is blown into luxuriance 
among the complacencies of a heart at 
ease, would soon evince its frailty were it 
carried out among the exposures of an 
every-day world; that there it would 
droop and perish under the uncongenial 
influences which, apart from religion, 
would positively wither up all the hon- 
esties and delicacies of humble life; and 
therefore, that if they nauseate that gos- 
pel, which ever meets with its best ac- 
ceptance, and werks its most congenial 
effects upon the poor, they abandon the 
poor to that very depravity into which 
they themselves, had they been placed 
among the same temptations and besetting 
urgencies, would assuredly have fallen. 
The force of native integrity may do still 
what it did in the days of Pagan antiqui- 
ty, when it reared its occasional speci- 
mens of worth and patriotism; but it is 
the power of godliness, and that alone, 
which will reclaim our population in the 
length and breadth of it, and shed a moral 
bloom, and a moral fragrance, over the 
wide expanse of society. But with many, 
and these too the holders of a great and 
ascendant influence in our land, godli- 
ness is puritanism, and orthodoxy is re- 
pulsive moroseness, and the pure doctrine 
of the Apostles is fanatical and disgusting 
vulgarity ; and thus is it a possible thing, 
that in their hands the alone aliment of 
public virtue may be withheld, or turned 
into poison. Little are they aware of the 
fearful reaction which may await their 
natural enmity to the truth as it is in Je- 
sus; and greviously have they been mis- 
led from the sound path, even of political 
wisdom, in the suspicion and intolerance 
wherewith they have regarded the dis- 
pensers of the word of life among the 


XL.J 


multitude. The patent way to disarm 
Nature of her ferocities, is to Christianize 
her; and we should look on all our 
alarms with thankfulness, as so many 
salutary indications, did they lead either 
to multiply the religious edifices, or to 
guide the religious patronage of our land. 

But, again, it is not merely the taste of 
the higher orders which may be at war 
with the best interests of our country. It 
is also their example; not their example 
of dishonesty, not their example of dis- 
loyalty, not their example of fierce and 
tumultuous violence, but an example of 
that which, however unaccompanied with 
any one of these crimes in their own per- 
son, multiplies them all upon the person 
of the imitators—we mean the example 
of their irreligion. A bare example of 
integrity on the part of a rich man, who 
is freed from all temptations to the oppo- 
site, is not an effective example with a 
poor man, who is urgently beset at all 
hands with these temptations. It is thus 
that the most pure and honourable exam- 
ple which can shine upon the poor from 
the upper, walks of society, of what we 
have called the secondary and the earth- 
born righteousness, will never counter- 
work the mischief which emanates from 
the example that is there held forth of un- 
vodJiness. 

It is the poor man’s sabbath which is 
the source of his week-day virtues. The 
rich may have other sources ; but take 
away the sabbath from the poor, and you 
mulict a general desecration of character 
upon them. ‘Taste, and Honour, and a 
naive fove of ‘Truth, may be sufficient 
guarantees to the performance of duties 
co the breaking of which there is no 
temptation. But they are not enough for 
the wear and exposure of ordinary life. 
hey make a feebie defence against such 
temptations as assail and agitate the men 
who, on the rack of tneir energies are 
struggling for subsistence. With them 
the relative obligations hold more singly 
upon the religious; and if the tie of re- 
ligion, therefore, be cut asunder, the 
whole of their moralitv will forthwith go 
into unhingement. Whatever virtue there 
is on the humbler levels of society, it 
holds direct of the sabbath and of the sanc- 
tuary ; and when these cease to be ven- 
erable, the poor cease to be virtuous. You 
take away all their worth, when you take 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 





347 


away the fear of God froin before their 
eyes ; and why then should we wonder 
at the result of a very general deprava- 
tion among them, if before their eyes 
there should be held forth, on the part of 
their earthly superiors, an utter fearless- 
ness of God? I'he humbler, it ought not 
to be expected, will follow the higher 
classes on the ground of social viitue ; 
for they have other and. severer difficul- 
ties to combat, and other temptations, 
over which the victory would be greatly 
more arduous. But the humbler will fol- 
low the higher on the ground of irreli- 
gion. Only they will do it in their own 
style, and, perhaps, with the more daring 
and lawless spirit of those who riot in 
the excesses of a newly felt liberty. 
Should the merchant, to lighten the pres- 
sure of work in his counting-house, make 
over the arrears of his week-day corres- 
pondence to the snug and secret oppor- 
tunity of the coming sabbath ;—the hard 
wrought labourer just follows up this ex- 
ample in his own way, when, not to 
lighten, but to solace the fatigue of the six 
days that are past, he spends the seventh 
in some haunt of low dissipation. Should 
the man of capital, make his’ regular es- 
cape from the dull Sunday, and the still 
duller sermon, by a rural excursion, with 
his party of choice spirits, to the villa of 
weekly retreat, which by his wealth h> 
has purchased and adorned—let it not be 
wondered at, that the man of drudgery 
is so often seen, with his band of associ- 
ates, among the suburb fields and path- 
ways of our city ; or that the day which 
God hath commanded to be set apart for 
himself, should be set apart by so vast a 
multitude, who pour forth upon our out- 
skirts, to the riot and extravagance of ho- 
liday. Should it be held indispensable 
for the accommodation of our higher cit- 
izens, that the great central lounge of pol- 
itics, and periodicals, and news, be opened 
on sabbath to receive thems then, though 
the door of public entry is closed, and 
with the help of screens, and hangings, 
and partial shutters, something like an 
homage is rendered to public decency, 
and the private approach is cunningly 
provided, and all the symptoms of sneak- 
ing and conscious impropriety are spread 
over the face of this guilty indulgence— 
let us not wonder, though the strength of 
example has forced its way through the 


348 


impotency of all these wretched barriers, 
and that the reading-rooms of sedition 
and infidelity are now open every sab- 
bath, for the behoof of our general pop- 
ulation. Should the high-bred city gen- 
tleman hold it foul scorn to have the 
raiilery of the pulpit thus let loose upon 
his habits, or that any person who fills it 
should so presume to tread upon his 
privileges—let us no longer wonder, if 
this very language, and uttered, too, in 
this very spirit, be re-echoed by the sour 
and sturdy Radical, who, equal to his su- 
perior in the principle of ungodliness, 
only outpeers him in his expressions of 
contempt for the priesthood, and of im- 
petuous defiance to all that wears the 
stamp of authority in the land. It is thus 
that the impiety of our upper classes now 
glares upon us from the people, with a 
still darker reflection of impiety back 
again; and that, in the general mind of 
our country, there is a suppressed but 
brooding storm, the first elements of 
which were injected by the men who 
now tremble the most under the dread of 
its coming violence. 

It is the decay of vital godliness 
amongst us, that has brought on this 
great moral distemper. It is irreligion 
which palpably lies at the bottom of it. 
Could it only have confined its influences 
among the sons of wealth or of lettered 
infidelity, society might have been safe. 
But this was impossible; and now that 
it has broke forth on the wide and popu- 
lous domain of humanity, it is seen that, 
while a slender and sentimental right- 
eousness might have sufficed, at least, for 
this present world, and among those 
whom fortune has shielded from its ad- 
versities, it is only by that righteousness 
which is propped on the basis of piety, 
that the great mass of a nation’s virtue 
can be upholden. 

There is something in the histories of 
these London ‘executions that is truly dis- 
mal.* It is like getting a glimpse into 
Pandemonium ; nor do we believe that, 
in the annals of human depravity, did 
ever stout hearted sinners betray more 
fierce and unfeeling hardihood. It is not 
that part of the exhibition which is merely 
revolting to sensitive nature that we are 


* Executions of men who had conspired for 
the murder of the Ministers of State. 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 


[SERM. 


now alluding to. It is not the struggle, 
and the death, and the shrouded operator, 
and the bloody heads that were carried 
around the scaffold, and the headless 
bodies of men who but one hour before, 
lifted their proud defiance to the God in 
whose presence the whole decision of 


their spirits must by this time have melted 


away. Itis the moral part of the exhi- 
bition that is so appalling. It is the firm 
desperado step with which they ascended 
to the place of execution. It is the un- 
daunted scowl which they cast on the 
dread apparatus before them. 
frenzied and bacchanalian levity with 
which they bore up their courage to the 
last, and earned, in return, the applause 
of thousands as fierce and as frenzied as 
themselves. It is the unquelled daring 
of the man who laughed, and who sung, 


and who cheered the multitude, ere he 


took his leap into eternity, and was 
cheered by the multitude, rending the air 
with approbation back again. These are 
the doings of infidelity. ‘These are the 
genuine exhibitions of the popular mind, 
after that Religion has abandoned it. It 
is neither a system of unchristian morals, 
nor the meagre Christianity of those 
who deride, as methodistical, all the pe- 
culiarities of our Faith, that will recall 
our neglected population. There is not 
one other expedient by which you will 
recover the olden character of England, 
but by going forth with the gospel of 
Jesus Christ among its people. Nothing 
will subdue them but that regenerating 
power which goes along with the faith of 
the New Testament. And nothing wil: 
charm away the alienation of their spirits, 
but their belief in the overtures of re- 
deeming mercy. | 

But we may expatiate too long; and 
let us therefore hasten to a close, with 
a few brief and categorical announce- 
ments, which we shall simply leave with 
you as materials for your own considera- 
tion. 

First, though social virtue, and loyalty, 
which is one of its essential ingredients, 
may exist in the upper walks of life apart 
from godliness—yet godliness, in the 
hearts of those who have the brunt of al] 
the common and popular temptations to 
stand against, is the main and effective 
hold that we have upon them for securing 
the righteousness of their lives. 


It is the 


7 


xu] 


Secondly, the despisers of godliness 
are the enemies of the true interest of 
our nation ; and it is possible that, under 
the name of Methodism, that very instru- 
_ment may be put away which can alone 
recall the departing virtues of our land. 

Thirdly, where godliness exists, loyal- 
ty exists ; and no plausible delusion—no 
fire of their own kindling, lighted at the 
torch of false or spurious patriotism, will 
ever eclipse the light of this plain au- 
thoritative scripture— Honor the King, 
and meddle not with those who are given 
to change.” 

But, again, such is the power of Chris- 
tianity, that, even though partially intro- 
duced in the whole extent of its saving 
and converting influences, it may work a 
general effect on the civil and secular vir- 
tues of a given neighbourhood. It is 
thus that Christianity may only work the 
salvation of afew, while it raises: the 
standard of morality among many. The 
reflex influence of one sacred character 
upon the vicinity of his residence may 

‘soften, and purify, and overawe many 
others, even where it does not spiritualize 
them. This is encouragement to begin 
with. It lets us perceive that, even be- 
fore a great spiritual achievement has 
been finished, a kind of derived and 
moral influence may have widely and 
visibly spread among the population. It 
is thus that Christians are the salt of the 
earth ; and we know not how few they 
are that may preserve society at large 
from falling into dissolution. It is be- 
cause there are so very few among us, 
that our nation stands on the brink of so 
fearfulan emergency. Were there fewer, 
our circumstances would be still more 
fearful; and if, instead of this, there were 
a few more, the national virtue may re- 
attain all the lustre-it ever had, even 
while a small fraction of our people are 
spiritual men. It is in this way, that we 
would defend those who so sanguinely 
count on the power of Christianity, from 
the imputation of being at all romantic 
-in their hopes or undertakings. It may 
take ages ere their ultimate object, which 
is to generalize the spirit and character 
of the millennium in our world, be ac- 
-complished. But if there were just a 
_tendency to go forth among our people on 
the errand of Christianizing them, and 
that tendency were not thwarted by the 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 





349 


enmity and intolerance of those who re- 
vile, and discourage, and set at nought all 
the activities of religious zeal, we should 
not be surprised though, in a few years, 
a resurrection were witnessed amongst 
us of all the virtues that establish and 
that exalt a nation. 

But, lastly, alarming as the aspect of 
the times is, and deeply tainted and im- 
bned as the minds of many are with infi- 
delity ; and widely spread as the habit 
has become of alienation from all the 
ordinances of religion ; and sullen as the 
contempt may be, wherewith the hardy 
blasphemer of Christianity would heark- 
en to its lessons, and eye its ministers, yet 
even he could not so withstand the honest 
and persevering good-will of one on 
whom there stood, visibly announced, the 
single-hearted benevolence of the gospel, 
as either to refuse him a tribute of kind- 
liness, when he met him on the street, or 
as to reject, with incivility and disdain, 
the advances he made upon his own 
family. Even though he should sternly 
refuse to lend himself to any of the pro- 
cesses of a moral and spiritual operator, 
yet it is a fact experimentally known, 
that he will not refuse to lend his chil- 
dren. The very man who, unpitying of 
himself, danced and sung on the borders 
of that abyss which was to ingulf him in 
a lake of vengeance for ever, even he 
had about hima part of surviving tender- 
ness, and he could positively weep when 
he thought of his family. He who, had 
he met a minister of state would have 
murdered him, had he met the sabbath- 
school teacher who ventured across his 
threshold, and simply requested the at- 
tendance of his children, might have tried 
to bear a harshand repulsive front against 
him, but would have found it to be im- 
possible. Here is a feeling which even 


the irreligion of the times has not oblit- 


erated, and it has left, as it were, an open 
door of access, through which we might 
at length find our way to the landing- 
place of a purer and better generation. 
We hear much of the olden time, when 
each parent presided over the religion of 
his own family, and acted, every sabbath 
evening, the patriarch of Christian wis- 
dom among the inmates of his own dwell- 
ing-place. How is it that this beautiful 
picture is again to be realized? Is it by 
persuasives, however forcible, addressed 


350 


to those who never listen to them? Is it 
by the well-told regrets of a mere indo- 
lent sentimentalism ? Is it by lifting up 
a voice, that will die in distance away, 
long ere it reach that mighty population 
who lie so remote from all our churches, 
and from all our ordinances? Are we 
to be interdicted from bending the twig 
with a strength which we do have, be- 
cause others require of us to bend the 
impracticable tree, with a strength which 
we do not have? The question is a prac- 
tical one, and should be met experimental- 
ly ;—how is the olden time to be brought 
back again? Is it by merely looking 
back upon it with an eye of tasteful con- 
templation ; or, is it by letting matters 
alone; or, is it by breathing indignation 
and despite against all the efforts of reli- 
gious philanthropy ; or, is it by disdain- 
ful obloquy against those who do some- 
thing, on the part of those that do nothing ? 
Who, in a future generation, will be the 
likeliest parents for setting up the old 
system? the children who now run 
neglected through the streets, or those 
who, snatched from sabbath profanation, 
receive a weekly training among the de- 
cencies and the docilities of a religious 
school? It is not the experimental truth 
upon this question, that the amount of 
family religion is lessened, under such an 
arrangement, in those houses where it 
had a previous existence ; but that, in- 
stead of this, it is often established in 
houses where it was before unknown. It 
is true, that unless a sabbath-school appa- 
ratus be animated by the Spirit of God, 
it will not bear with effect on the morals 
of the rising generation ; but still it is by 
the frame-work of some apparatus or 
other that the Spirit works: and we 
deem that the likeliest and the best de- 
vised for the present circumstances of our 
country, which can secure, and that im- 
mediately, the most abundant strength of 
application on tender and susceptible 
childhood.* 


* Had not the Sermon been extended to so 
great a length, its Author might have entered a 
little more into detail on the operation and advan- 
tage of the sabbath-school system; an omission, 
however, which he less regrets, as, in the work 
of supplying it, he would have done little more 
than repeated what he has published on the sub- 
ject, in a more express form. 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 


ee ee ee ee 


[SERM. 


In conclusion, we may advert to a cer- 
tain class of society, now happily on the 
decline, who are fearful of enlightening 
the poor; and would rather that every 
thing was suffered to remain in the qui- 
escence of its present condition; and 
though the Bible may be called the key 
to the kingdom of Heaven, yet, associa- 
ting, as they do, the turbulence of the peo- 
ple with the supposed ascent that they 
have made in the scale of information, 
would not care so to depress them beneath 
the level of their present scanty literature, 
as virtually to deny them the use and the 
possession of the Oracles of God. Such 
is the unfeeling policy of those who would 
thus smother all the capabilities of hum- 
ble life, and lay an interdict on the culti- 


-vation of human souls, and barter away 


the eternity of the lower orders, for the 
temporal safety and protection of the 
higher, and, in the false imagination, that 
to sow knowledge is to sow sedition in 
the land, look suspiciously and hardly on 
any attempt thus to educate the inferior 
classes of society. It is well that these 
bugbears are rapidly losing their influ- 





The same remark applies to the cursory allusion 
that he has made on that melancholy topic, the 
lack of city churches, and the unwieldy extent of 
city parishes; he having, elsewhere, both deliv- 
ered the arithmetical statements upon this topic, 
and also ventured to suggest the gradual remedy 
that might be provided for the restoration of 
church-going habits among the people of our 
great towns. 

He takes the opportunity which this Note af- 
fords him, of referring the attention of his readers 
to a truly Christian charge, drawn up by the 
Methodist body in November 1819, on the subject 
of the political discontents which then agitated 
the country. It was circulated, he understands, 
among the members and ministers of that con- 
nexion, and ought for ever to dissolve the im- 
agination of any alliance between the spirit of 
methodism, and the spirit of a factious or disaf- 
fected turbulence. 

He would further observe, that the mighty in- 
fluence of a sabbath on the general moral and 
religious character of the people, may serve to 
vindicate the zeal of a former generation about 
this one observance ; a zeal which is regarded by 
many as altogether misplaced and puritanical. 
Without entering into the question, whether the 
Law of the Country should interfere to shield 
this day from outward and visible profanation, it 
may at least be affirmed, that the opinion of those 
who rate the alternations of Christianity in a 
land, by the fluctuating regards which, from one 
age to another, are rendered to the Christian 
Sabbath, is deeply founded on the true philoso- 
phy of our nature. 


XL] 


ence—and we know not how far this is 
due to our late venerable monarch, who, 
acting like a father for the good of his 
people, certainly did much to rebuke this 
cruel and unfeeling policy away from his 
empire. His saying, that he hoped to 
see the time, when there should not be a 
poor child in his dominions who was not 
taught to read the Bible, deserves to be 
enshrined among the best and the wisest 
of all the memorabilia of other days. It 
needs only the Saxon antiquity of Alfred, 
to give it a higher place than is given to 
all that is recorded even of his wisdom. 
We trust that it will be embodied in the 
remembrance of our nation, and be hand- 
ed down as a most precious English tra- 
dition, for guiding the practice of English 
families ; and that, viewed as the memo- 
rial of a Patriot King, it will supplant the 
old association that obtained between 
knowledge and rebellion, and raise a new 
association in its place, between the cause 
of education and the cause of loyalty. Be 
assured, that it is not because the people 
know too much, that they ever become 
the willing subjects of any factious or un- 
principled demagogue—it is just because 
they know too little. It is just because 
ignorance is the field on which the quack- 
ery of a political impostor ever reaps its 
most abundant harvest. It is this which 
arms him with all his superiority; and 
the way eventually to protect society from 
the fermentation of such agitators, is to 
scatter throughout the mass as much 
knowledge and information as will equal- 
ize the people to the men who bear them 
no other regard, than as the instruments 
of uproar and overthrow. No coercion 
can so keep down the cause of scholar- 
ship, as that there shall not be a sufficient 
number, both of educated and unprinci- 
pled men, to plot the disturbance and 
overthrow of all the order that exists in 
society. You cannot depress these to the 
level of popular ignorance, in a country 
where schools have not been universally 
instituted, You cannot unscholar dema- 
gogues down to the level of an untaught 
multitude ; and the only remaining alter- 
native is, to scholar the multitude up to 


IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 





35 


the level of demagogues. Let Scotland,® 
even in spite of the exhibition that she 
has recently made, be compared with the 
other two great portions of our British 
territory, and it will be seen, historically, 
as well as argumentatively, that the way 
to tranquillize a people is not to enthral 
but to enlighten them. It is, in shovt, 
with general knowledge as it is with the 
knowledge of Christianity. There are 
incidental evils attendant on the progress 
of both; but a most glorious consumma- 
tion will be the result of the perfecting of 
both. Let us go forth, without restraint, 
on the work of evangelizing the world, 
and the world, under such a process, will 
become the blissful abode of Christian 
and well-ordered families. And let us go 
forth, with eaual alacritv. to the work of 
spreading education among our own peo- 
ple; and, instead of bringing on an an- 
ticipated chaos, will it serve to grace and 
to strengthen all the bulwarks of security 
in the midst of us. The growth of in 
telligence and of moral worth among the 
people, will at length stamp upon them 
all that majesty of which they will ever 
be ambitious; and, instead of a precari- 
ous tranquillity, resting upon the basis of 
an ignorance ever open to the influences 
of delusion, will the elements of peace, 
and truth, and righteousness, be seen to 
multiply along with the progress of learn- 
ing in our land. 


* What we regret most in our late disturbances, 
is, that it may serve to foment the prejudice 
which still exists against the cause of popular 
education. It is worthy of remark, that, of late 
years, both in Glasgow and Paisley, this cause 
has been most lamentably on the decline ; inso- 
much that we will venture to say, there is no 
town population in Scotland which has become 
so closely assimilated, in this respect, to the 
manufacturing population of our sister country. 
Any danger which may be conceived to arise 
from education, proceeds not from the extent of 
it in any one class of society, but from the in- 
equality of it between people either of the same, 
or of different classes; thus rendering one part 
of the population more manageably subservient 
to any designing villany or artifice that may exist 
in another part. The clear and direct way of re- 
storing this inequality, is, not to darken and de- 
grade all, which is impracticable, but, as much 
as possible, to enlighten all. 


352 


EFFICACY OF PRAYER AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 


{[SERM. 


SERMON XLI. 


On the Consistency between the Efficacy of Prayer, and the Uniformity of 
Nature. 


Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking aicter their own lusts,— 
and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things con 
tinue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” —2 Prrar ii. 3, 4. 


Tue infidelity spoken of in our text, 
had for its basis the stability of nature, 
or rested on the imagination that her 
economy was perpetual and everlasting— 
and every day of nature’s continuance 
added to the strength and inveteracy of 
this delusion. In proportion to the length 
of her past endurance, was there a firm 
confidence felt in her future perpetuity. 
The longer that nature lasted, or the 
older she grew, her final dissolution was 
held to be all the more improbable—till 
nothing seemed so unlikely to the atheist- 
ical men of that period, as the interven- 
tion of a God with a system of visible 
things. which looked so unchanging and 
so indestructible. It was like the contest 
of experience and faith, in which the for- 
mer grew every day stronger and strong- 
er, and the latter weaker and weaker, till 
at length it was wholly extinguished ; 
und men in the spirit of defiance or ridi- 
cule, braved the announcement of a Judge 
who should appear at the end of the 
world, and mocked at the promise of His 
coming. 

But there is another direction which 
infidelity often takes, beside the one spe- 
cified in our text. It not only perverts to 
its own argument, what experience tells 
of the stability of nature ; and so concludes 
that we have nothing to fear from the 
mandate of a God, laying sudden arrest 
and termination on its processes It also 
perverts what experience tells of the uni- 
formity of nature; and so concludes that 
ve have nothing either to hope or to fear, 
from the intervention of a God during the 
continuance or the currency of these pro- 
cesses. Beside making nature indepen- 
dent of God for its duration, which they 
hold to be everlasting ; they would also 
make nature to be independent of God 
for its course, which they hold to be un- 
alterable. They tell us of the rigid and 


a 


undeviating constancy from which nature 
is never known to fluctuate; and that in 
her immutable laws, in the march and 
regularity of her orderly progressions, 
they can discover no trace whatever of 
any interposition by the finger of a Deity. 
It is not only that things continue to be 
as they were from the beginning of crea- 
tion; but that all things continue to act, 
as they did from the beginning of the cre- 
ation—causes and effects following each 
other in wonted and unvariable succes- 
sion, and the same circumstances ever 
issuing in the same consequents as before 
With such a system of things, there is 
no room in their creed or in their imagi- 
nation, for the actings of a God. To their 
eye, nature proceeds by the sure footsteps of 
a mute and unconscious materialism ; nor 
can they recognise in its evolutions those 
characters of the spontaneous or the wil 
ful, which bespeak a living God to have 
had any concern with it. He may have 
formed the mundane system at the first. 
he may have devised for matter its pro- 
perties and its laws: but these properties, 
they tell us, never change; these laws 
never are relaxed or receded from. And 
so we may as well bid the storm itself 
cease from its violence, as supplicate the 
unseen Being whom we fancy to be sit- 
ting aloft and to direct the storm. This 
they holdto be a superstitious imagination, 
which all their experience of nature and 
of nature’s immutability forbids them to 
entertain. By the one infidelity, they 
have banished a God from the throne of 
judgment. By the other infidelity, they 
have banished a God from the throne of 
providence. By the first they tell us, 
that a God has nought to do with the 
consummation of nature ; or, rather, that 
nature has no consummation. By the 
second, they tell us that a God has nought 
to do with the history of nature. The 


first sifidelity would expunge from our 
ext et the doctrine of a coming judgment. 
Tie second would expunge from it the 
dovtrine of a present and a special provi- 
‘dence, and the Seance of the efficacy of 
pruyer. 

Now this last, though not just the infi- 
detity of the text—yet “being very much 
the same with it in principle—we hold it 
suiliciently textual, though we make it, 
and not the other the subject of our pre- 
sent argument. We admit the uniformi- 
ty of visible nature—a lesson forced upon 
us by all experience. We admit that as 
far as our observation extends, nature has 
always proceeded in one invariable order 
—insomuch that the same antecedents 
have, without exception, been ever fol- 
lowed up by the same consequents; and 
that, saving the well accredited miracles 
of the Jewish and Christian dispensations, 
all things have so continued since the be- 
ginning of the creation, 

We admit that, never in our whole 
lives, have we witnessed as the effect of 
man’s prayer, any iafringement made on 
the known laws of the universe ; or that 
nature by receding from her constancy, 
to the extent that we have discovered it, 
has ever in one instance yielded to his 
7 supplicating cry. We admit that by no 
importunity from the voice of faith, or 
from any number and combination of 
voices, have we seen an arrest or a shift 
laid on the ascertained courses, whether 
of the material or the mental economy ; 
or a single fulfilment of any sort, brought 
about in contravention, either to the known 
properties of any substances, or to the 
known principles of any established suc- 
cession in the history of nature. These 
are our experiences ; and we are aware 
the very experiences which ministered to 
the infidelity of our text, and do minister to 
the practical infidelity of thousands in the 
present day—yet in opposition to, or ra- 
ther notwithstanding these experiences, 
universal and unexcepted though they be, 
do we affirm the doctrine of a superin- 
tending providence, as various and as 
special, as our necessities—the doctrine 
of a perpetual interposition from above, 
as manifoldly and minutely special, as 
are the believing requests which ascend 
from us to Heaven’s throne. 

We feel] the importance of the subject, 





EFFICACY OF PRAYER AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE, 


| 


Wwe 


303 


that now hangs over us,* and to the infi- 
delity of the present times. But we can- 
not hope to be fully understood, without 
your most strenuous and sustained atten. 
tion—an attention, however, which we 
request may be kept up to the end, even 
though certain parts in the train of 
observation may not have been followed 
by you. What some may lose in those 
passages, where the subject is presented 
in the form of a general argument, may 
again be recovered, when we attempt to 
establish our doctrine by scripture, or to 
illustrate it by instances taken from the 
history of human affairs. In one way or 
other, you may seize on the reigning 
principle of that explanation, by which 
we endeavour to reconcile the efficacy of 
prayer with the uniformity of experi- 
ence. And our purpose shall have been 
obtained, if we can atall help you to a 
greater confidence in the reality of a su- 
perintending providence, to a greater 
comfort and confidence in the act of 
making your requests known unto God. 

Let us first give our view in ail its 
generality, in the hope that any obscurity 
which may rest upon it in this form, will 
be dissipated or cleared up, in the subse- 
quent appeals that we shall make, both to 
the lessons of the Bible, and to the lessons 
of human experience. 

We grant then, we unreservedly grant, 
the uniformity of visible nature; and now 
let us compute how much, or how little, 
it amounts to. Grant of all our progres- 
sions, that, as far as our eye can carry us, 
they are invariable ; and then let us only 
reflect how shorta way we can trace any 
of them upwards. In speculating on the 
origin of an event, we may be able to as- 

sign the one which immediately preceded, 
and term it the proximate cause; or even 
ascend by two or three footsteps, till we 
have discovered some anterior event 
which we term the remote cause. But 
how soon do we arrive at the limit of 
possible investigation, beyond which if 
attempt to go, we lose ourselves 

among the depths and the obscurities of a 
region that is unknown? Observation, 
may conduct us a certain length back- 
wards in the train of causes and effects ; 
but, after pa done its uttermost, we 








* This sermon was phicned during the pre- 


both in its application to the judgment! valence of cholera 


854 


feel, that, above and beyond its loftiest 
place of ascent, there are still higher 
steps in the train which we vainly try to 
reach, and find them inaccessible. 

It is even so throughout all philosophy. 
After having arrived at® the remotest 
cause which man can reach his way to, 
we shall ever find there are higher and 
remoter causes still, which distance all 
his powers of research, and so will ever 
remain in deepest concealment from his 
view. Ofthis higher part of the train he 
has no observation. Of these remoter 
causes, and their mode of succession, he 
can positively say nothing. For aught 
he knows, they may be under the imme- 
diate control of higher beings in the uni- 
verse; or, like the upper part of a chain, 
a few of whose closing links are all that 
is visible to us, they may be directly ap- 
pended to the throne, and at all times sub- 
ject to the instant pleasure of a prayer- 
hearing God. And it may be by a Tes- 
ponsive touch at the higher, and not the 
lower part.of the progression, that He an- 
swers our prayers. It may be not by an 
act of intervention among those near and 
visible causes, where intervention would 
be a miracle; it may be by an unseen, 
but not less effectual act of intervention, 
among the remote and therefore the oc- 
cult causes, that He adapts Himself to 
the various wants and meets the various 
petitions of His children. If it be in the 
latter way that He conducts the affairs of 
His daily government—then may He 
rule by a providence as special, as are the 
needs and the occasions of His family ; 
and, with an ear open to every cry, might 
He provide for all and administer to all, 
without one infringement on the uniform- 
ity of visible nature. If the responsive 
touch be given at the lower part of the 
chain, then the answer to prayer is by 
miracle, or by a contravention to some of 
the known sequences of nature. But if 
the responsive touch be given at a suffi- 
ciently higher part of the chain, then the 
answer is as effectually made, but not by 
miracle, and without violence to any one 
euccession of history or nature which 
philosophy has ascertained—-because the 
reaction to the prayer strikes at a place 
that is higher than the highest investiga- 
tions of philosophy. It is not by a visi- 
ble movement within the region of hu- 
gman observation, but by .1m_ invisible 


EFFICACY OF PRAYER AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 


[SERM. 


movement in the transcendental region 
above it, that the prayer is met and res- 
ponded to. The Supernal Power of the 
Universe, the mighty and unseen Being 
who sits aloft, and has been significantly 
styled the Cause of causes—He, in im- 
mediate contact with the upper extremi- 
ties of every progression, there puts forth 
an overruling influence which tells ana 
propagates downwards to the lower ex- 
tremities ; and so, by an agency placed 
too remote either for the eye of sense or 
for all the instruments of science to dis- 
cover, may God, in answer if He choose 
to prayer, fixand determine every series 
of events—of which nevertheless all that 
man can see is but the uniformity of the 
closing footsteps—a few of the last causes 
and effects following each other in their 
wonted order. It is thus that we recon- 
cile all the experience which man has of 
nature’s uniformity, with the effect and 
significancy of his prayers to the God of 
nature. It is thus that at one and the 
same time, do we live under the care ofa 
presiding God, and among the regulari- 
ties of a harmonious universe. 

These views are in beautiful accord- 
ance with the simple and sublime theolo- 
gy unfolded to us in the book of Job— 
where, whether in the movements of the 
animated kingdom below, or the great 
evolutions that take place in the upper 
regions of the atmosphere, the phenome- 
na and the processes of visible nature are 
sketched with a masterly hand. It is in 
the midst of these scenes and impressive 
descriptions, that we are told—*“ lo these 
are parts of his ways.” The translation 
does not say what parts ; but the original 
does. They are but the lower parts— 
the endings as it were of the different 
processes—the last and lowest footsteps, 
which are all that science can investigate ; 
and of which, throughout the whole of 
her limited ascent, she has traced the uni- 
formity. But she has traced it a very 
short way: or, in the language of the 
patriarch, who estimates aright the 
achievements of pbhilosophy—how little a 
portion is heard of Him—how few the 
known footsteps which are beneath the 
veil to the unknown steps and workings 
which are above it; and so, the thunder, 
or rather he inward and secret move- 
ments of His power, who can under- 
stand ? ‘ 


« 


XLI.] 


“ He bindeth up the waters in his thick 
clouds: and the cloud is not rent under 
them. He holdeth back the face of his 
throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it. 
He hath compassed the waters with 
bounds, until the day and night come to 
anend, The pillars of heaven tremble, 
and are astonished at his reproof. He 
divideth the sea with his power, and by 
his understanding he smiteth through the 
proud. By his spirit he hath garnished 
the heavens; his hand hath formed the 
crooked serpent. Lo, these are parts of 
his ways; but how little a portion is 
heard of him? but the thunder of his 
power who can understand?” Job xxvi. 
8—14. 

The last sentence of this magnificent 
passage were better translated thus— 
These are the parts, or the lower endings 
of his ways ;—but the secret working cf 
his power, who can understand ?' 

That part of the economy of the divine 
administration, in virtue of which God 
works, not without but by secondary 
causes, is frequently intimated in the book 
of Psalms. 

“ Who maketh his angels spirits, his 
ministers a flaming fire.” Ps. civ. 4. 

Or, as it might have been translated— 
“ Who maketh the winds his messengers, 
and the flaming fire his servant.” 

But without the aid of any emendations 
in our version, this subserviency of visi- 
ble nature tothe invisible God, is distinctly 
laid before us in the following passages. 

“They that go down to the sea in 
ships, that do business in great waters ; 
These see the works of the Lord, and his 
wonders in the deep. For he command- 
eth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which 
lifteth up the waves thereof. ‘hey mount 
up to the heaven, they go down again to 
the depths ; the soul is melted because of 
trouble. ‘They reel to and fro, and stag- 
ger like a drunken man, and are at their 
wit’s end. Then they cry unto the Lord 
in their trouble, and he bringeth them 
out of their distresses. He maketh the 
storm a calm, so that the waves thereof 
are still. ‘Then are they glad, because 
they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto 
their desired haven. Oh, that men would 
praise the Lord for his goodness, and for 
his wonderful works to the children of 
men.” Psalm evil. 23—31. 


EFFICACY OF PRAYER AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE, 


355 


He raises the tempest, not without the 
wind, but by the wind. In the one way, 
it would have been a miracle; in the 
other way it is alike effectual, but without 
any change in the properties or laws of 
visible nature—without what we com- 
monly understand by a miracle. He 
does not bring the vessel against the 
wind to its desired haven; but he makes 
the storm a calm, and so the waves thereof 
are still. Our Saviour also bade the 
winds into peace ; and the miracle there 
lay in the effect following on the heard 
utterance of His voice. A voice no less 
effectual though unheard by us, over- 
rules at all times the working of nature’s 
elements ; and brings the ordinary pro- 
cesses, as well as the marked and mira- 
culous exception to them, under the con- 
trol of a divine agency. : 

“ Whatsoever the Lord pleaseth, that 
did he in heaven, and in earth, in the 
seas, and all deep places. He causeth 
the vapours to ascend from the ends of 
the earth; he maketh lightnings for the 
rain; he bringeth the wind out of the 
treasuries.” Psalm cxxxv. 6, 7. 

Here, without any change of transla- 
tion, we are told of the subserviency of 
the visible instruments, to the invisible 
but real agency of Him who wields them 
at His pleasure. In this passage, the 
winds are plainly represented to us as. the 
messengers of God, and the flaming fire 
as his servant. He changes no proper- 
ties, and no visible processes—working, 
not without the wind, but by it—not 
without the electric matter, but by it— 
not without the rain, but by it—not with- 
out the vapour, but by it. Let the philo- 
sopher tell how far back he can go, in 
exploring the method and order of these 
respective agencies. Then we have only 
to point further back and ask—on what 
evidence he can tell, that the fiat and the 
finger of a God are notthere. We grant 
the observed order to be invariable, save 
when God chooses to interpose by mire- 
sle. But whether he does or not—from 
that chamber of his hidden operations, 
which philosophy has not found its way 
to, can he so direct all, so subordinate all, 
that whatever the Lord pleases, that does 
he in heaven and in earth, in the seas, 
and all deep places. 

“ Praise the Lord from the earth, ye 


356 


dragons, and all deeps; Fire and hail; 
snow and vapour ; stormy wind fulfilling 
his word.” Psalm cxlviii. 7, 8. 
The stormy wind fulfilleth his word. 
Our last example shall be from the 
' New Testament. ‘ Nevertheless he left 
not himseif without witness, in that he 


EFFICACY OF PRAYER AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 


[SERM, 


blance of a miracle, but by the march and 
the movement of nature’s regularity, to 
its final consummation. God hath in 
wisdom ordained a regimen of general 
laws; and, that man might gather from 
the memory of the past, those lessons of 
observation which serve for the guidance 


did good, and gave us rain from heaven, | of the future, He hath enacted that all 
and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts| those successions shall be invariable, 


with food and gladness.” Acts xiv. 17. 
‘This last example will prepare you to 
go along with one of the particular in- 
stance we are just to bring forward, of a 
special prayer met by a special fulfilment. 
We are thus enabled to perceive what 
the respective provinces are of philosophy 
and faith. Jivery event in nature or his- 
tory, has a cause in some prior event that 
went before it, and that again in another, 
and that again in another still higher than 
itself in this scale of precedency ; and so 
might we climb our ascending way from 
cause to cause, from consequent to antece- 
dent-—till the investigation has been 
carried upwards, from the farthest possi- 
ble verge of human discovery. There it 
is that the domain of observation or of 
philosophy terminates; but we mistake, 
if we think that there the progression, 
whose terms or whose footsteps we have 
traced thus far, also terminates. Beyond 
this limit we cannot track the pathway 
of causation—not because the pathway 
ceases, but because we have lost sight of 
it—having now retired from view among 
ihe depths and mysteries of an unknown 
resion, which we, with our bounded 
faculties, cannot enter. ‘This may be 
termed the region of faith—placed as it 
were above the region of experience. 
‘lhe things which are done in the higher, 
have an overruling influence, by lines of 
transmission, on all that happens in the 
lower—yet without one breach or inter- 
ruption to the uniformity of visible nature. 
Whatever is done in the transcendental 
region—be it by the influence of prayer ; 
by the immediate finger of God; by the 
ministry of angels; by the spontaneous 
movements, whether of displeasure or of 
mercy above, responding to the sins or to 
the supplicating cries that ascend from 
earth’s inhabitants below—that will pass 
by a descending influence into the palpa- 
ble regions of sense and observation—yet, 
from the moment it comes within its 
limits, will it proceed without the sem- 


which have their place and their fulfil- 


ment within the world of sensible experi- 
ence. Yet God has not, on that account, 
made the world independent of Himself. 
He keeps a perpetual hold on all its 
events and processes notwithstanding. 
He does not dissever Himself, for a single 
instant, from the government and the 
guardianship of His own universe; and 
can still, notwithstanding all we see of 
nature’s rigid uniformity, adapt the forth- 
goings of His power to all the wants and 
all the prayers of His dependent family. 
For this purpose, He does not need to 
stretch forth His hand on the inferior and 
the visible links of any progression, so as 
to shift the known successions of experi- 
ence; or at all to intermeddle with the 
lessons and the laws of this great school- 
master. He may work in secret, and yet 
perform all His pleasure—not by the 
achievement of a miracle on nature’s open 
platform ; but by the touch of one or 
other of those master springs, which lie 
within the recesses of her mner labora- 
tory. There, and at His place of super- 
nal command by the fountain heads of 
influence, He can turn whithersoever He 
will the machinery of our world, and 
without the possibility of human eye of 
detecting the least infringement on any 
of its processes——at once upholding the 
regularity of visible nature, and the su- 
premacy of nature’s invisible God. 

But we are glad to make our escape, 
and now to make it conclusively, from 
the obscurer part of our reasoning on 
this subject—although, most assuredly, 
these are not the times for passing it 
wholly by; or for withholding aught 
which can make in favour of the much 
derided cause of humble and earnest 
piety. But, instead of propounding our 
doctrine in the terms of a general argu- 
ment, let us try the effect of a few spe- 
cial instances—by which, perhaps, we 
might more readily gain the consent of | 
your understandtng to our views. 


tet. 


a wea 


XLL] 

When the sigh of the midnight storm 
sends fearful agitation into a mother’s 
heart, as she thinks of her sailor boy, 
now exposed to its fury, on the waters of 
a distant ocean—these stern disciples of 
a hard and stern infidelity would, on this 
notion of a rigid and impracticable con- 
stancy In nature, forbid her prayers— 
nolding them to be as impotent and vain, 
though addressed to the God who has all 
the® elements in his hand, as if lifted up 
with senseless importunity to the raving 
»lements themselves. Yet nature would 
strongly prompt the aspiration; and, if 
there be truth in our argument, there is 
nothing in the constitution of the universe 
io forbid its accomplishment. God might 
answer the prayer, not by unsettling the 
urder of secondary causes—not by re- 
versing any of the wonted successions 
inat are known to take place in the ever- 
restless ever-heaving atmosphere—not by 
sensible miracle among those nearer foot- 
steps which the philosopher has traced ; 
but by the touch of an immediate hand 
among the deep recesses of materialism. 
which are beyond the ken of all its in- 
struments. It is thence that the Sove- 
reign of nature might bid the wild up- 
roar of the elements into silence. It is 
there that the virtue comes out of Him, 
which passes like a winged messenger 
from the invisible to the visible; and at 
the threshold of separation between these 
two regions, impresses the direction of 
the Almighty’s will on the remotest cause 
which science can mount her way to. 
From this point in the series, the path of 
descent along the line of nearer and prox- 
imate causes may be rigidly invariable ; 
and in respect of the order, the precise 
undeviating order, wherewith they fol- 
low each other, all things continue as 
they were from the beginning of the crea- 
tion. 


quent moving forces by which either to 
raise a new tempest or to lay an old one 
—all these may proceed, and without one 
hair-breadth of deviation, according to the 
successions of our established philosophy 
—yet each be but the obedient messen- 
ger of that voice, which gave forth its 
command at the fountain-head of the 
whole operation; which commissioned 
the vapours to ascend from the ends of 
the earth, and made lightnings for the 


EFFICACY OF PRAYER AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE, 


The heat, and the vapour, and the | 
atmospherical precipitates, and the conse-| 








357 


rain, and brought the wind out of his 
treasuries. These are the palpable steps 
of the process ; but an unseen influence, 
behind the farthest Mmit of man’s boasted 
discoveries, may have set them agoing 
And that influence may have been ac 
corded to prayer—the power that moves 
Him, who movesthe universe ; and who, 
without violence to the known regulari- 
ties of mature, can either send forth the 
hurricane over the face of the deep or re- 
call it at His pleasure. Such is the joy- 
ful persuasion of faith, and proud philo- 
sophy cannot disprove it. A woman’s 
feeble cry may have overruled the ele- 
mental war; and hushed into silence this 
wild frenzy of the winds and the waves ; 
and evoked the gentler breezes from the 
cave of their slumbers; and wafted the 
vessel of her dearest hopes, and which 
held the first and and fondest of her earth- 
ly treasures, to its desired haven. 

And so of other prayers. It is not 
without instrumentality, but by means of 
it, that they are answered. The fulfil- 
ment is preceded by the accustomed 
series of cause and effects ; and preceded 
as far upward, as the eye of man can 
trace the pedigree of sensible causation. 
Were it by a break anywhere in the 
traceable part of this series that the 
prayer was answered, then its fulfilment 
would be miraculous. But without a 
miracle the prayer is answered as effec- 
tually. Thus, for example, is met the 
cry of a people under famine, for a speedy 
and plenteous harvest—not by the instant 
appearance of the ripened grain, at the 
bidding of a voice from heaven—not pre- 
ternaturally cherished into maturity, in 
the midst of storms; but ushered on- 
wards, by a grateful succession of shower 
and sunshine, to a prosperous consumma- 
tion. An abundant harvest is granted to 
prayer—yet without violence, either to 
the laws of the vegetable physiology, or 
to any of the known laws by which the 
alterations of the weather are determined. 
It must be acknowledged by every philo- 
sopher, howsoonit is that we arrive in both 
departments on the confines of deepest 


| mystery ; and, let the constancy of patent 


and palpable nature be as unaltered and 
unalterable as it may, God reserves to 
Himself the place of mastery and com- 
mand, whether among the arcana of vege 
tation or the depths of meteorology. He 


> 


358 EFFICACY OF PRAYER AND 


may at once permit a most rigid unifor- 
mity to the visible workings of nature’s 
mechanism—while among its invisible, 
which are also its @ntecedent workings, 
He retains that station of preeminence 
and power, whence He brings all things 
to pass according to His pleasure. It is 
not by sending bread from the upper 
store-houses of the firmament, that He 
answers this prayer. It is by sending 
rain and fruitful seasons. The interme- 
diate machinery of nature is not cast 
aside, but pressed into the service; and 
the prayer is answered by a secret touch 
from the finger of the Almighty, which 
sets all its parts and all its processes 
agoing. With the eye of sense, man 
sees nothing but nature revolving in her 
wonted cycles, and the months following 
each other in bright and beautiful suc- 
cession. In the eye of faith, ay and of 
sound philosophy, every year of smiling 
plenty upon earth is a year crowned with 
-he goodness of heaven. 

But to touch on that which more im- 
mediately concerns us, let us now in- 
stance prayer for health. We ask, if 
here philosophy has taken possession of 
the whole domain, and left no room for 
the prerogatives and the exercise of faith 
—no hope for prayer? Has the whole 
intermediate space between the first cause 
and the ultimate phenomena, been so 
thoroughly explored; and the rigid uni- 
formity of every footstep in the series 
been so fixed and ascertained by observa- 
tion, as to preclude the rationality of 
prayer, and leave it without a meaning, 
because without the possibility of a fulfil- 
ment? Where is the physician or the 
physiologist who can tell, that he has 
made the ascent from one prognostic or 
one predisposition to another—till he 
reached even to the primary fountain- 
head of that influence, which either medi- 
cates or distempers the human frame ; 
and found throughout an adamantine 
chain of necessity, not to be broken by the 
sufferer’s imploring cry? We ask the 
guardians of our health, how far upon 
the pathway of causation, the discoveries 
of medical science have carried them ; 
and whether, above and beyond their far- 
thest look into the mysteries of our frame- 
work, there are not higher mysteries ; 
where a God may work in secret and the 





UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. [SERM. 
to heal or destroy? It is thence, He ma 

answer prayer. It is from this summit 
of ascendancy, that He may direct all the 


processes of the human constitution—yet 


without violating in any instance, the 
uniformity of the few last and visible foot- 
steps. ‘Because science has traced, and 
so far determined this uniformity, she has 
not therefore exiled God from His own 
universe: She has not forced the Deity 
to quit His hold of its machinery, or to 
forego by one iota the most perfect com- 
mand of all its evolutions. His superin- 
tendence is as close and continuous and 
special, as if all things were done by the 
visible intervention of his hand. Without 
superstition, with the fullest recognition 
of science in all its prerogatives and all 
its glories—might we feel our immediate 
dependence on God; and, even in this 
our philosophic day, and notwithstanding 
all that philosophy has made known to 
us, might we still assert and vindicate the 
higher philosophy of prayer—asking of 
God, as patriarchs and holy men of old 
did before us, for safety and sustenance 
aud health and all things. 

And if ever in the dealings of God with 
the people of the earth, if ever science 
had less of the territory and faith had 
more of it, it is in that undisclosed mys- 
tery which still hangs over us; which 
now for many months has shed baleful in- 
fluences on your crowded city ; and where- 
of no man can tell whether in another 
day or another hour, it might not descend 
with fell swoop into the midst of his own 
family—entering there with rude uncere- 
monious footstep, and hurrying to one of 
its rapid and inglorious funerals the dear- 
est of its inmates. Never on any other 
theme did philosophy make more entire 
demonstration of her own helplessness ; 
and perhaps at the very first footsteps of 
the investigation, or on the question of the 
proximate cause, the controversy is loud- 
est of all. But however justly of the 
proximate cause discovery may be made, 
or however remotely among the anterior 
causes the investigation might be carried, 
never will proud philosophy be able to 
annul the intervention of a God, or pur- 
chase to herself the privilege of mocking 
at the poor man’s prayer. Indeed, amid 
the exuberance and variety of speculation 
on this unsettled and unknown subject, 


hand of the Omnipotent be stretched forth | there was one remote cause assigned for 


betas 


~ ge ae aT te 


XL1.] 


this pestilent visitation, which, so far from 
shutting out, rather suggests and that 
most forcibly the intervention of a God 
immediately before it. “And it shall 
come to pass in that day, that the Lord 
shall hiss for the fly that is in the utter- 
most part of the rivers of Egypt, and for 
the bee that is in the land of Assyria: 
and they shall come, and shall rest all of 
them in the desolate valleys, and in the 
holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, 
and upon all bushes.”* We hope to have 
made it plain to you, let this or any other 
cause be found the true one, that, how- 
ever high the path of discovery may have 
been traced, yet higher still there is place 
for the finger of a God above to regulate 
all the designs of a special providence, 
and to move in conformity with all the 
accepted prayers of His family below. 
But among the scoffers of our latter day, 
even inthe absence or the want of all dis- 
covery, the finger of a God is disowned ; 
and it seems to mark how resolute and at 
the same time how hopeless is the infi- 
delity of modern times, that, just in pro- 
portion to our ignorance of all the second- 
ary or the sensible causes, is our haughty 
refusal of any homage to the first cause. 
It is passing strange of this disease, that, 
after having baffled every attempt to find 
out its dependence on ought that is on 
earth, the idea of its dependence on the 
will of Heaven should of all others have 
been laughed most impiously to scorn. 
The voice of derision and defiance was 
first heard in our high places; and 
thence it passed, as if by infection, into 
general society. Andso, many have dis- 
ewned the power and the will of the 
Deity in this visitation. They most un- 
philosophically, we think, as well as im- 
piously have spurned at prayer. 

But we cannot pass away from this 
part of our subject, without adverting to 
a recent event, the thought of which is at 
present irresistibly obtruded on us, and 
by which this parish and congregation 
but a few weeks ago have been deprived 
of one of the most conspicuous of our 
office-bearers—one who constitutionally 
the kindest and most indulgent of men, 
was the most alive of all I ever knew to 
the wants and the miseries of our com- 
mon natufe ; and who finely alive to all 


* Isaiah vii, 18, 19. 


EFFICACY OF PRAYER AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 


a7 


359 


the impulses and soft touches of humani- 
ty, laboured night and day in the voca- 
tion of doing good continually. But, in- 
stead of saying that he laboured, 1 should 
say that he luxuriated in well doing; for 
never was a heart more attuned to read 

and responsive agreement with the calls 
of benevolence than his, and sooner would 
I believe of nature that she had receded 
from her constancy, than of him that e’er 


“He looked unmoved on misery’s languid eye, 
Or heard her sinking voice without a sigh.,’ 


Of all the recollections which the 
friends either of my youth or of my 
manhood have left behind them in this 
land of dying men, there is none more 
beautifully irradiated—whether I look 
back on the mildness of his christian 
worth, or on those sensibilities of an open 
and generous and finely attempered spirit, 
which gives such a charm to human 
companionship. And as the second great 
law is like unto the first ; so that love of his 
which went forth so diffusively amongst 
his fellows upon earth, we humbly hope, 
was at once the indication and the conse- 
quent of a love that ascended with high 
and habitual aspiration to God in heaven. 
It was through a brief and tremendous 
agony that he was carried from the 
world of sense to the world of spirits ; 
and yet it isa happiness to be told that 
the faith and hope of the gospel lighted 
up a halo over his expiring moments, 
and that, ere death had closed his eyes, 
he through nearly an hour of audible 
prayer gave his last testimony to the 
truth as it is in Jesus.* 

But to recall ourselves from this theme 
of sadness, we trust you will now under- 
stand of every event in nature or history, 
that each in the order of causation is 
preceded by a train which went before 
it, and that man’s observations can ex 
tend more or less a certain way along 
this train, till they are lost in the undis- 
covered and at leneth undiscoverable re- 
cesses which are placed beyond the cog- 
nizance of the human faculties. Nowit 
is because of the higher and unknown 
part which belongs to every such series 








* This note refers to John Wilson, Esq.’ Silk 
merchant Glasgow, who was Kirk Treasurer of 
St. John’s, and to the deep regret of all whe 
knew him, was carried off by cholera in the 
neighbourhood of Glasgow. 


360 


EFFICACY OF PRAYER AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 


[SERN 


that we bid you respect the lessons of | the most strenuous diligence in the use of 
piety, for God hath not so constructed | means, with the strictest dependence upon 
the universe as to remove it from the| God. Without the combination of these 
hold of His own special management and} two, there has been nothing great, no- 
superintendence ; and therefore, not in|thing effective in the history of the 
me thing the Bible tells us, but in every | church ; and, on the other hand, we find 
thing we should make our requests! that all the most illustrious, whether in 


known unto God. 


But again, it is be-| philanthropy or in christian patriotism, 


cause of the lower and the known or as-| from the apostle Paul to the highest 
certained and strictly uniform part which} names in the descending history of the 
belongs to every series, that we bid you| world, as Augustine and Luther and 
respect the lessons of experience; for; Knoxand Howard, that, superadding the 


God did not so conduct the affairs of His 
universe, as to thrust forth His invisible 
hand among its visible successions ; but 
while He keeps a perpetual and ascend- 
unt hold among the springs of that ma- 
chinery which is behind the curtain, He 
leaves untouched all those wonted regu- 
‘arities, which, on the stage of observa- 
tion, are patent to human eyes. Now 
these are the respective domains of phi- 
fosophy and faith, and this is the use to be 
made of them. Looking to the one, we 
earn the subordination of all nature. 
Looking to the other, we learn the con- 
stancy of visible nature. These great 
truths harmonize; and between the les- 
sons which they give there is the fullest 
harmony. He who is enlightened and 
acts upon both is at one and the same 
lime a man of prudence and a man of 
prayer; who never loses his confidence 
in God, yet, as awake to the manifesta- 
tions of experience as if they were the 
maanifestations of the divine will, never 
counts upon a miracle. He holds perpet- 
ual converse with heaven; yet shapes 
his earthly conduct by his earthly cir- 
cumstances. In his habits of diligence 
he proceeds on the uniformity of visible 
nature, and he does accordingly. In his 
habits of devotion he knows that there is 
a visible power above which subordinates 
all nature, and he prays accordingly. 
He is neither the mystic who will not 
act, nor is he the infidel who will not 
pray. He knows how to combine both, 


or how to combine wisdom with piety— | 


that rare and beauteous combination un- 
known to the world at large, yet realized 
by many a cottage patriarch, who, with- 
out attempting, without being capable in 
fact of any profound or philosophical ad- 
justment between them, but on his sim- 
ple understanding alone of Scripture 
lessons and Scripture examples, unites 





wisdom of experience to a sense of deep- 
est piety, they were at once men of per- 
formance and men of prayer. 

But let us look for a moment to the 
highest example of all, even that of our 
Saviour when on earth; for in the his- 
tory of His temptation, will the eye of 
the diligent observer recognize an appli 
cation and a moral, which serve, we 
think very finely, to illustrate our whole 
argument. ae 

The first proposal of the adversary 
was, that, because an hungered by the 
abstinence of forty days and forty nights 
in the wilderness, he should turn stones 
into bread ; and the reply of our Saviour 
that “ man liveth not by bread alone but 
by every word that cometh out of the. 
mouth of God” bespoke His confidence 
in that Supreme Power which overrules 
all nature. Now observe how this is fol- 
lowed up by the tempter—since such His 
confidence I may prevail upon*"Him to 
cast Himself from the pinnacle of the 
temple, employing the very argument 
He just has used, even the overruling 
power of that God who can bear Him up 
by the intervention of angels lest he dash 
his foot against a stone. The reply “thou 
shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” tells 
us, that the same Being who overrules all 
nature, never interferes, but for some 
worthy and great purpose to thwart the 
established successions of visible nature ; 
and that it is wrong, itis wanton, in ny 
of his creatures so to act, as if he counted 
upon such an interference. It isa noble 
lesson for us never to traverse or neglect 
the means which experiénce hath told us 
are effectual for good; and never to 
brave, but at the call of imperious duty, 
the exposures which the same experience 
has told us, on our knowledg@ or recol- 
lection of Nature’s established proc esses, 
are followed up by evil. Our Srviour 


Rn 


would not, in defiance to the law of grav- 
‘Itation, cast himself off from that place 
of security which upheld Him against its 
power. And neither should we ever, 
though in defiance but to the probable 
law of contagion, or by what (to borrow 
a usual phrase) might well be termed a 
tempting of Providence, refuse those pla- 
_ ces or cast away those measures of secu- 
rity, that are found to protect us against 
the virulence of this destroyer. In a 
word, between the wisdom of piety and 
the wisdom of experience there is most 
profound harmony—unknown to the in- 
fidel, and so he hath cast off prayer ; 
unknown to the fanatic, and so he hath 
cast prudence away from him. 
And we appeal to you, my brethren, if 
there be not much in the state and recent 
history of our nation to confirm these 
views. We rejoiced in the appointment 
several months ago of a national fast, and 
that notwithstanding the contempt and an- 
noyance of the many infidel manifesta- 
tions to which the appointment had been 
exposed—hoping, as we then did, that it 
would meet with a duteous and a general 
response from the people of the land ; and 
perceiving afterwards, in our limited 
sphere, the obvious solemnity, and we 
trust in a goodly number of instances, the 
deep and heart-felt sacredness of its obser- 
vation among our families. It is well 
that there should be a public and a prayer- 
ful recognition of God in the midst of us; 
and we have failed in our argument, we 
have failed, whether from the obscurity 
of its illustrations or the obscurity of its 
terms, in obtaining for it the sympathy of 
your understandins—if you perceive not, 
that, in the distinct relation of cause and 
effect, there is a real substantive connec- 
tion between the supplications which as- 
cend for health and safety from the midst 
of a land, and the actual warding off of 
disedse and death from its habitations. 
But in fullest harmony with this it is also 
well, I would go further and say there is 
no infringement upon deepest piety in | 
pronouncing it indispensable—that while 
we invoke the Heavenly Agent who sit- | 
teth above for every effectual blessing, all 
the earthly means and earthly instruments 
should be in complete and orderly pre- 
paration. e are aware that in many 
places and on many occasions these have 





46 


EFFICACY “OF PRAYER AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 


2 


361 


been rebelled against.* And it but en- 
hances the lesson, beside carrying a most 
impressive rebuke, both to the fanaticism 
of an ill-understood Christianity ; and to 
the ignorant frenzy of an ill-educated and, 
in respect to the woeful deficiency both 
of churches and schools, we would say a 
neglected population—that just in those 
places where the offered help of the phy- 
sician was most strenuously and most un- 
gratefully resisted, and at times indeed by 
violence overborne, that there it was 
where the disease reasserted its power, 
and as if with the hand of an avenger 
shook menace and terror among the fami- 
lies. As if the same God who bids us in 
His word make request unto Him in all 
things, would furthermore tell us by His 
Providence, that, in no one thing will He 
permit a heedless invasion on the regu- 
larities of that course which He Himself 
has established ; that with His own hand 
He ordained the footsteps of Nature, and 
He will chastise the presumption of those 
who shall think to contravene the ordt- 
nance; that experience is the school-master 
authorized by Him for the governmen: 
and guidance of His family on earth, aia 
that He will resent the outrage done v3 
her authority whenever her lessons <& 
her laws are wantonly violated. 

In conclusion let us observe, that, on 
the one hand, we shall be glad if aught 
that has been said will help to ¢onciliate 
our mere religionists to the lessons of 
experience and of sound philosophy ; and, 
in opposition to those senseless prejudices, 
by which they have often brought the 
most unmerited derision and discredit on 
their own cause, we would remind them 
that it is not all philosophy which Scrip- 
ture denounces, but only vain philosophy 
—it is not all science which it deprecates, 
but only the science falsely so called. 


* In Edinburgh the metropolis of medical sci- 
ence, a. vigorous system of expedients was instt- 
tuted ; and nothing could exceed the promptitude 
and the watchfulness and the activity, at a mo- 
ment’s call, wherewith the disease was met and 
repressed at every point of its outbreakings. 
And we cannot imagine a more striking demon- 
stration for the importance of human agency, 
diligently operating on all the resources which 
Nature and experience have placed within our 
reach, thanis furnished by a comparison between 
the perfection of our city arrangements, and the 
fewness of our city deaths. 


362 


On the other hand we should rejoice in 
witnessing the mere philosopher, or man 
of secular and experimental wisdom, more 
conciliated than he is to the lessons of 


Religion, and to that humble faith which | 


is the great and actuating spirit of its ob- 
gervations and its pieties and its prayers. 
We have heard that the study of Natural 
Science disposes to Infidelity. 
feel persuaded that this is a danger only 
associated with a slight and partial, never 
with a deep and adequate and compre- 
hensive view of its principles. It is very 
possible that the conjunction between sci- 
ence and scepticism may at present be 


HEAVEN A CHARACTER 





AND NOT A LOCALITY. [SERM. 
more frequently realised than in former 
days; but this is only because, in spite of 
all that is alleged about this our more en- 
lightened day and more enlightened pub- 
lic, our science is neither so deeply found- 
ed nor <f such firm and thorough staple 
as it wont to be. We have lost in depth 
what we have gained in diffusion—hav- 


But we | ing neither the massive erudition, nor the 


gigantic scholarship, nor the profound 
and well-laid philosophy of a period that 
has now gone by; and it is to this that 
infidelity stands indebted for her triumphs 
among the scoffers and the superficialists 
of a half-learned generation. 


SERMON XLII. 


Heaven a Character and not a Locality. 


 ¥Te that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he 
that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” —Rev. 


xxii. 11. 


Our first remark on this passage of 
Scripture, is, how very palpably and 
nearly it connects time with eternity. 
fhe character wherewith we sink into 
the grave at death, is the very character 
wherewith we shall re-appear on the day 
of resurrection. The character which 
habit has fixed and strengthened through 
life, adheres, it would seem, to the disem- 
bodied spirit, through the mysterious in- 
terval which separates the day of our 
dissolution from the day of our account 
—when it will again stand forth, the very 
image and substance of what it was, to 
the inspection of the Judge and the 
awards of the judgment-seat. The 
moral lineaments which be graven on 
the tablet of the inner man, and which 
every day of an unconverted life makes 
deeper and more indelible than before, 
will retain the very impress they have 
gotten—unaltered and uneffaced, by the 
transition from our present to our future 
state of existence. There will be a dis- 
solution, and then a reconstruction of the 
body, from the sepulchral dust into which 
it had mouldered. But there will be 
neither a dissolution nor a renovation of 
the spirit, which, indestructible both in 
character and essence, will weather and 


retain its identity, on the mid-way passage 
between this world and the next—so that 
at the time of quitting its earthly tene- 
ment we may Say, that, if unjust now it 
will be unjust still, if filthy now it will 
be filthy still, if righteous now it will be 
righteous still, and if holy now it will be 
holy still. 

Our second remark, suggested by the 
scripture now under consideration, is that 
there be many analogies of nature and 
experience, which even death itself does 
not interrupt There is nought more 
familiar to our daily observation than the 
power and inveteracy of habit—insomuch 
that any vicious propensity is strengthen- 
ed by every new act of indulgence; any 
virtuous principle is more firmly estab- 
lished than before, by every new act of 
resolute obedience to its dictates. The 
law which connects the actings of boy- 
hood, or of youth, with the character of 
manhood, is the identical, the unrepealed 
law which connects our actings in time 
with our character through eternity. 
The way in which the moral discipline 
of youth prepares for the honours and 
the enjoyments of a virtuous manhood, is 
the very way in which the moral and 
spiritual discipline of a whole life pre- 


XLIL | 


pares for a virtuous and happy immortal- 
ity. And, on the other hand, the succes- 
sion, as of cause and effect, from a profli- 
gate or a dishonest manhood, to a dis- 
graced and worthless old age—is just the 
succession, also of cause and effect, be- 
tween the misdeeds and the depravities 
of our history on earth, and an inherit- 
ance of worthlessness and wretchedness 
for ever. ‘I'he law of moral continuity 
between the different stages of human 
life, is also the law of continuity between 
the two worlds—which even the death 
that intervenes does not violate. Be he 
a saint or a sinner, each shall be filled 
with the fruit of his own ways—so that 
‘ when translated into their respective 
places of fixed and everlasting destina- 
tion, the one shall rejoice through eter- 
nity in that pure element of goodness, 
which here he loved and aspired after ; 
the other, a helpless, a degraded victim 
of those passions which lorded over him 
through life, shall be irrevocably doomed 
to that worst of torments and that worst 
of tyranny—the torment of his own ac- 
cursed nature, the inexorable tyranny of 
evil. 

Our third remark suggested by this 
scripture is, that it affords no very du- 
bious perspective of the future heaven 
and the future hell of the New Testa- 
ment. We are aware of the material 
images employed in scripture, and by 
which it bodies forth its representation of 
buth—of the fire, and the brimstone, and 
the lake of living agony, and the gnash- 
ing of teeth, and the wailings, the cease- 
less wailings of distress and despair un- 
utterable, by which the one is set before 
us in characters of terror and most re- 
volting hideousness—of the splendour, 
the spaciousness, the music, the floods of 
melody and sights of surpassing loveli- 
ness, by which the other is set before us 
in characters of bliss and brightness un- 
perishable ; with all that can regale the 
glorified senses of creatures, rejoicing for 
ever in the presence and before the throne 
of God. We stop not to inquire, and far 
less to dispute, whether these descriptions, 
in the plain meaning and very letter of 
them, are to be realized. But we hold 
that it would purge theology from many 
of its errors, and that it would guide and 
enlighten the practical Christianity of 
many honest inquirers—if the moral 


HEAVEN A CHARACTER ANI NOT A LOCALITY. 


» 


363 


character both of heaven and hell were 
more distinctly recognized, and held a 
more prominent place in the regards and 
contemplations of men. If it indeed be 
true that the moral, rather than the ma- 
terial, is the main ingredient, whether of 
the coming torment or the coming ecstasy 
—then the hell of the wicked may be 
said to have already begun, and the 
heaven of the virtuous may be said to 
have already begun. The one, in the 
bitterness of an unhinged and dissatisfied 
spirit, has a foretaste of the wretchedness 
before him ; the other, in the peace and 
triumphant complacency of an approving 
conscience, has a foretaste of the happi- 
ness before him. Each is ripening for 
his own everlasting destiny ; and whether 
in the depravities that deepen and accu- 
mulate on the character of the one, or in 
the graces that brighten and multiply 
upon the other—we see materials enough, 
either for the worm that dieth not, or for 
the pleasures that are for evermore. 

But again, it may be asked, will spi- 
ritual elements alone suffice to make up, 
either the intense and intolerable wretch- 
edness of a hell, or the intense beatitude 
of a heaven? For an answer to this 
question, let us first turn your attention to 
the former of these receptacles. And we 
ask you to think of the state of that heart 
in respect to sensation, which is the seat 
of a concentrated and all-absorbing selfish- 
ness, which feels for no other interest 
than its own, and holds no fellowship of 
truth or honesty, or confidence with the 
fellow-beings around it. The owner of 
such. a heart may live in society ; but, 
cut off as he is by his own sordid nature 
from the reciprocities of honourable feel- 
ing and good faith, he may be said to live 
an exile in the midst of it. He is a 
stranger to the day-light of the moral 
world ; and, instead of walking abroad 
on an open platform of free and fearless 
communion with his fellows, he spends a 
cold and heartless existence in the hiding- 
place of his own thoughts. You mis- 
take it, if you think of this creeping and 
ignoble creature, that he knows aught of 
the real truth or substance of enjoyment ; 
or however successful he may have been 
in the wiles of his paltry selfishness, that 
a sincere or a solid satisfaction has beer 
the result of it. On the contrary, if you 
enter his heart, you will there find a dis- 


” 


364 


taste and disquietude in the lurking sense 
of its own worthlessness; and that dis- 
severed from the respect of society with- 
out, it finds no refuge within, where he is 
abandoned by the respect of his own 
conscience. It does not consist with 
moral nature, that there should be internal 
happiness or internal harmony, when the 
moral sense is made to suffer perpetual 
violence. A man of cunning and con- 
cealment, however dexterous, however 
triumphant in his worthless policy, is not 
at ease. The stoop, the downcast re- 
gards, the dark and sinister expression, 
of him who cannot lift up his head 
among his fellow men, or look his com- 
panions in the face, are the sensible 
proofs, that he who knows himself to be 
dishonest feels himself to be degraded ; 
and the inward sense of dishonour which 
haunts and humbles him here, is‘ but the 
commencement of that shame and_ ever- 
lasting contempt to which he shall awa- 
ken hereafter. 

This, you will observe, is a purely 
moral chastisement ; and, apart altogether 
‘rom the infliction of violence or pain on 
the sentient economy, is enough to over- 
whelm the spirit that is exercised thereby. 
Let him then that is unjust now be un- 
just still; and, in stepping from time to 
eternity, he bears, in his own distempered 
bosom, the materials of his coming ven- 
geance along with him. The character 
itself will be the executioner of its own 
condemnation ; and when, instead of each 
suffering apart, the unrighteous are con- 
gregated together—as in the parable of 
the tares, where, instead of each plant 
being severally destroyed, the order is 
given to bind them up in bundles and 
burn them—we may be well assured, 
that, where the turbulence and disorder 
of an unrighteous society are superadded 
to those sufferings which prey in secrecy 
and solitude within the heart of each 


individual member, a ten-fold fiercer and | 


more intolerable agony will ensue from 


it. The anarchy of a state, when the/s 


authority of its government is for a time 
suspended, forms but a feeble representa- 


tion of that everlasting anarchy, when the | 
unrighteous of all ages are let loose to | 


HEAVEN A CHARACTER 


AND NOT A LOCALITY, 


on the one side, and the outcries of re 
sentment on the other; and, though ne 
pain were inflicted, in this war of passions 


and of purposes, the passion and purpose ~ 


of violence in one quarter calling forth 
the passion and the purpose of keenest 
vengeance back again—though no ma 
terial or sentient agony were felt-—though 
a war of disembodied spirits—yet in the 
wild tempest of emotions alone —the 
hatred, the fury, the burning recollection 
of injured rights, and the brooding 
thoughts of yet unfulfilled retaliation—in 
these, and these alone, do we ‘behold the 
materials enough of a dire and dreadful 
pandemonium ; and, apart from corporeal] 


suffering altogether, may we behold, in’ 


the full and final developments of charac- 
ter alone, enough for imparting all its 
corrosion to the worm that dieth not, 
enough for sustaining in all its fierceness 
the fire that is not quenched. 


But there is another moral ingredient 


in the future sufferings of the wicked, 
beside the one of which we have now 
spoken—suggested to us by the second 
clause of our text; and from which we 
learn that, not only will the unjust man 
carry his falsehoods and his frauds along 
with him to the place of condemnation, 
but that also the voluptuary will carry his 
unsanctified habits and unhallowed pas- 
sions thitherward. “Let him that is 
filthy be filthy still’? We would here 
take the opportunity of exposing, what 
we fear is a frequent delusion in society 
—who give their respect to the man of 
honour and integrity—and he does not 
forfeit that respect, though known at the 
same time to be a man of dissipation. 
Not that we think any one of the virtues, 


‘which enter into the composition of a 


perfect character, can suffer, without all 
the other virtues suffering along with it. 
We believe that a conjunction, between a 
habit of unlawful pleasure and the main- 
tenance of a strict resolute exalted equity 


_and truth, is very seldom, we could almost 





act and react with unmitigated violence: 


In this conflict of as- | 
this fierce and fell 


on each other. 
sembled myriads ; 


say, is Hever realised. "The man. of for- 
bidden indulgence, in the prosecution of 
his objects, has a thousand degrading 
fears to encounter; and many conceal- 
ments to practise ; ‘perhaps low and un- 
worthy artifices to which he must de- 
_scend; and how can either his honour 
or his humanity be said to survive, if at 


collision between the outrages of injustice Icngth, in his heedless and impetuous 


s 


[SER™. 


XLI1.] 4 


career, he shall trample on the dearest 
tights and the most sacred interests of 
farnilies ? With us it has all the authority 
of a moral aphorism, that the sobrieties 
of human virtue can never be invaded, 
w:hout the equities of human virtue also 
being invaded. 'The moralities of human 
life are too closely linked and interwoven 
with each other, as that though one 
should be detached, the uchers might be 
left uninjured and entire ; and so no one 
can cast his purity away from him, with- 
out a violence being done to the general 
moral structure and consistency of his 
whole character. But, be this as it may ; 
we have the authority of the text and the 
oft reiterated affirmations of the New. 
Testament, for saying of the voluptuary, 
that, if the countenance of the world be 
not withdrawn from him, the gate of 
heaven is at least shut against him ; that 
nothing unclean or unholy can enter 
there; and that, carrying his uncrucified 
affections into the place of condemnation, 
he will find them too to be the ministers 
of wrath, the executioners of a still sorer 
vengeance. The loathing, the remorse, 
the felt and conscious degradation, the 
dreariness of heart that follow in the) 
train of guilty indulgence here—these 
form but the beginning of his sorrows; 
and are but the presages and the precur- 
sors of that deeper wretchedness, which, | 
by the unrepealed laws of moral nature, 
the same character will entail on its pos- 
sessors in another state of existence. 
‘They are but the penalties of vice in em- 
bryo, and they may give at least the con- 
ception of what are these penalties in full. 
{t will add—it will add inconceivably, 
to the darkness and disorder of that moral 
chaos, in which the impenitent shall 
spend their eternity—when the uproar 
of the bacchanalian and the licentious 
emotions is thus super-added, to the selfish 
and malignant passions of our nature ; 
and when the frenzy of unsated desire, 
followed up by the languor and the com- 
punction of its worthless indulgence, shall 
make up the sad history of many an un- 
happy spirit. We need not to dwell on 
the picture, though it brings out into 
bolder relief the all-important truth, that 
there is an inherent bitterness in sin ; that, 
by the very constitution of our nature, 
moral evil is its own curse and its own 
worse punishment ; that the wicked on 


| 





HEAVEN A CHARACTER’ 


AND NOT A LOCALITY. 265 
the other side of death, but reap what 
they sow on this side of it; and that, 
whether we look to the tortures of a dis- 
tempered spirit or to the countless ills of 
a distempered society, we may be very 
sure that to the character of its inmates— 
a character which they have fostered 
upon earth, and which now remains 
fixed on them through eternity—the main 
wretchedness of hell is owing. 

Before quitting this part of the subject, 
we have but one remark more to offer. 
It may be felt as if we had overstated the 
power of mere character to beget a 
wretchedness at all approaching to the 
wretchedness of hell—seeing that the 
character is often realised in this world, 
without bringing along with it a distress 
or a.discomfort which is at all intolerable. 
Neither the unjust man of our text, nor 
the licentious man of our text, is seen to 


| be so unhappy here, in virtue of the mor- 


al characteristics which respectively be- 
long to them, as to justify the imagina- 
tion, that there, these characteristics will 
be af power, to effectuate such anguish 
and disorder of spirit as we have now 
been representing. But it is forgotten, 
first, that the world presents in its busi- 
néss, its amusements, and its various grati- 
fications, a refuge from the mental ago- 
nies of reflection and remorse—and, se- 
condly, that the governments of the world 
offer a restraint against the outbreakings 
of violence, which would keep up a per- 
petual anarchy in the species. Let us sim- 
ply conceive of these two securities 
against our having even now a hell upon 
earth, that they are both taken down ; that 
there is no longer such a world as ours, 
affording to each individual spirit innu- 
merable diversions from the burden of its 
own thoughts; and no longer such a hu- 
man government as ours, affording to 
general society a powerful defence against 
the countless variety of ills, that would 
otherwise rage and tumultuate within its 
borders—then, as sure as that a solitary 
prison is felt by every criminal to be the 
most dreadful of all punishments ; and as 
sure as that, on the authority of law be- 
ing suspended, the reign of terror would 
commence, and the unchained passions 
of humanity would go forth over the face 
of the land to raven and to destroy—so 
surely, out of moral elements and influ- 
ences alone, might an eternity of utter 


366 HEAVEN A CHARACTER 
wretchedness and despair be entailed on 
the rebellious: And, only let all the un- 
just and all the licentious of our text be 
formed into a community by themselves, 
and the Christianity which now acts asa 
purifying and preserving salt upon the 
earth be wholly removed from them ; and 
then it will be seen that the picture has 
not been overcharged; but that the 
wretchedness is intense and universal, 
just because the wickedness reigns un- 
controlled, without mixture and without 
mitigation. 

But we now exchange this appalling 
for a delightful contemplation. The next 
clause of our text suggests to us the moral 
character of heaven. We learn from it 
that, on the universal principle “as a tree 
falleth so it lies,” the righteous now. will 
be righteous still. |. We no more dispute 
the material accompaniments of heaven, 
than we dispute the material accompani- 
ments in the place of condemnation. But 
still we must affirm of the happiness that 
reigns, and holds unceasing jubilee there 
—that, mainly and pre-eminently, it is 
the happiness of virtue; that the joy of 
the eternal state is not so much a sensible 
or a tasteful or even an intellectual as it 
is a moral and spiritual joy; that it isa 
thing of mental, infinitely more than it is 
a thing of corporeal gratification ; and, 
to convince us how much the former has 
the power and predominance over the 
latter, we bid you reflect, that, even in this 
world, with all the defect and disorder 
of its materialism, the curse upon its 
ground inflicting the necessity of sore la- 
bour, and the angry tempest from its sky 
after destroying or sweeping off the fruits 
of it, the infirmity of their feeble and dis- 
tempered frames, after the pining sickness 
and at times the sore agony—yet, in spite 
of these, we ask whether it would not 
hold nearly if not universally true, that 
if all men were righteous then all men 
would be happy. Just imagine fora mo- 
ment, that honour and integrity and be- 
nevolence were perfect and universal in 
the world; that each held the property 
and right and reputation of his neighbour 
to be dear to him as his own; that the 
suspicions and the jealousies and the 
heart-burnings, whether of hostile vio- 
lence or envious competition, were alto- 
gether banished from human society ; 
that the emotions, at all times delightful, 


AND NOT A LOCALITY. [SERM. 
of good-will on the one side, were ever 
and anon calling the emotions no less de- 
lightful of gratitude back again; that 
truth and tenderness hold their secure 
abode in every family ; and, on stepping 
forth among the wider companionships 
of life, that each could confidently rejoice 
in every one he met with as a brother 
and a friend—we ask if on this simple 
change, a change you will observe in the 
morale of humanity, though winter 
should repeat its storms as heretofore, and 
every element of nature were to abide un- 
altered—yet, in virtue of a process and a 
revolution altogether mental, would not 
our millennium have begun, and a heay- 
en on earth be realized? Now let this 
contemplation be borne aloft, as it were, 
to the upper sanctuary, where we are 
told there are the spirits of just men made 
perfect, or where those who were once 
the righteous on earth are righteous still. 
Let it be remembered, that nothing is ad- 
mitted there, which worketh wickedness 
or maketh a lie; and that therefore, with 
every feculence of evil detached and dis- 
severed from the mass, there is nought 
in heaven but the pure the transparent 
element of goodness—its unbounded love. 
its tried and unalterable faithfulness, its 
confiding sincerity. Think of the ex 
pressive designation given to it in the Bi- 
ble, the land of uprightness. Above all 
think, that, revealed in visible glory, the 
righteous God, who loveth righteousness, 
there sitteth upon His throne, in the 
midst of a rejoicing family—Himself re- 
joicing over them, because, formed in His 
own likeness, they love what He loves, 
they rejoice in what He rejoices. There 
may be palms of triumph ; there may be 
crowns of unfading lustre; there may be 
pavements of emerald, and rivers of pleas- 
ure, and groves of surpassing loveliness, 
and palaces of delight, and high arches 
in heaven which ring with sweetest mel- 
ody—but, mainly and essentially, it is a 
moral glory which is lighted up there; 
it is virtue which blooms and is immortal 
there; it is the goodness by which the 
spirits of the holy are regulated here, it is 
this which forms the beatitude of eternity. 
The righteous now, who, when they die 
and rise again, shall be righteous still, 
have heaven already in their bosoms: 
and when they enter within its portals, 
they carry the very being and substance 


/ oes 


XLII] 


of its blessedness along with them—the 
character which, is itself the whole of 
heaven’s worth, the character which is 
the very essence of heaven’s enjoyments. 

“ Let him that is holy, be holy still.” 
The two clauses descriptive of the char- 
acter in the place of celestial blessedness, 
are counterparts to the clauses descriptive 
of the character in the place of infernal 
woe. He that is righteous in the one 
stands contrasted with him that is unjust 
in the other. He that is holy in the one 
stands contrasted with him that is licen- 
tious in the other. But we would have 
you attend to the full extent and signifi- 
eance of the term “ holy.” It is not ab- 
stinence from the outward deeds of profli- 
gacy alone. It is nota mere recoil from im- 
purity inaction. Itisa recoil from impu- 
rity in thought. It is that quick and sensi- 
tive delicacy to which even the very con- 
ception of evil is offensive—a virtue which 
has its residence within; which takes 
guardianship of the heart, as of a citadel 
or unviolated sanctuary in which no 
wrong or worthless imagination is per- 
mitted to dwell. It is not purity of action 
that is all which we contend for. It is 
exalted purity of sentiment—the ethereal 
purity of the third heavens, which, if once 
settled in the heart, brings the peace and 
the triumph and the unutterable serenity 
of heaven along with it. In the mainte- 
nance of this, there is a curious elevation ; 
there is the complacency, we had almost 
said the pride, of a great moral victory 
over the infirmities of an earthly and ac- 
cursed nature ; there is a health and har- 
mony to the soul; a beauty of holiness, 
which, though it effloresces on the coun- 
tenance and the manner and the outward 
path, is itself so thoroughly internal, as 
to make purity of heart the most distinc- 
tive evidence of a work of grace in time, 
the most distinct and decisive evidence of 
a character that is ripening and expand- 
ing for the glories of eternity. ‘‘ Blessed 
are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God.” “ Without holiness no man shall 
see God.” “Into the oly city nothing 
which defileth or worketh an abomina- 
tion shall enter.” These are distinct 
nd decisive passages, and point to that 
consecrated way, through which alone, 
the gate of heaven is opened to us. On 
this subject, there is a remarkable harmo- 
ny, between the didactic sayings of vari- 


HEAVEN A CHARACTER AND NOT A LOCALITY. 


367 


ous books in the New Testament, and 
the descriptive scenes which are laid be- 
fore us in the book of Revelations.. How- 
ever partial and imperfect the glimpses 
there afforded of heaven may be, one 
thing is palpable as day, that holiness is 
its very atmosphere. It is the only ele- 
ment which its inmates breathe, and 
which it is their supreme and ineffable de- 
light to breathe in. They luxuriate 
therein, as in their best-loved and most 
congenial element. Holiness is their oil 
of gladness—the elixir, if we may use the 
expression, the moral elixir of glorified 
spirits. And in their joyful hosannas, 
whether of “ Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord 
God Almighty,” or of “ Just and true are 
thy ways thou King of Saints,’ we may 
read, that, as virtue in the Godhead is the 
theme of their adoration, so virtue in 
themselves is the very treasure they have 
laid up in heaven—the wealth, as well 
as the ornament, of their now celestial na- 
tures. 

We would once more advert to a pre- 
valent delusion that obtains in society. 
We are aware of nothing more ruinous, 
than the acquiescence of whole multi- 
tudes in a low standard of qualifications 
for Heaven. The distinct aim is to be 
righteous now, that, after the death and 
the resurrection you may be righteous 
still—to be holy now, that you may be 
holy still. But hold it not enough, that 

ou are free from the dishonesties which 
would forfeit the mere respect and confi- 
dence of the world or from the profliga- 
cies which even the world itself would 
hold to be disgraceful. There is a cer- 
tain amount of morality, which is in de- 
mand upon earth, but which is miserably 
short of the requisite preparation for 
Heaven—the holiness indispensable there, 
is a universal an unspotted and withal a 
mental and spiritual holiness. It is this 
which distinguishes the morality of a re- 
generated and aspiring saint, from the 
morality of a respectable citizen, who 
still is but a citizen of the world, with his 
conversation not in heaven, with neither 
his heart nor his treasure there. ‘The 
sighiious of our text would recoil from 
the least act of unfaithfulness, from being 
unfaithful in the least as from being un- 
faithful in much. The holy of our text 
would shrink in sensitive aversion and 
‘alarm from the first approaches of evil, 


I 





368 HEAVEN A CHARACTER 
from the incipient contaminations of 
‘thought and fancy and feeling, as from 
the foul and final contaminations, of the 
eutward history. Both are diligent to 
be found of Christ without spot and 
blameless, in the great day of account— 
glorifying the Lord with their soul and 
spirit, as well as with their bodies—as- 
piring after those graces, which, unseen 
by every earthly eye, belong to the hid- 
den man of the heart, and in the sight of 
heaven are of great price—and so pro- 
ceeding onward from strength to strength 
on this lofty path of obedience, till they 
appear perfect before God in Zion. 

We feel that we have not nearly ex- 
hausted the subject of our text, by these 
brief and almost miscellaneous observa- 
tions. ‘The truth is, it is a gteat deal too 
unwieldy for any single address, and we 
shall therefore conclude with the notice | 
of one specimen that might be alleged | 
for the importance of the view that we 
have just given in purging theology from 
error. If the mora! character then of 





tinctly understood and consistently applied, 
it would serve directly and decisively 
to. extinguish antinomianism. It would 
in fact reduce that heresy to a contradic- 
tion in terms. There is no sound and 
scriptural Christian, who ever thinks of 
virtue as the price of heaven. It is 
something a great deal higher, it is hea- 
ven itself—the very essence, as we have 
already said, of heaven’s blessedness. It 
occupies therefore a much higher place 
than the secondary and the subordinate 
one, ascribed to it even by many of the 
writers termed evangelical—who view it 
mainly as a token or an evidence that 
heaven will be ours. Instead of which 
it is the very substance of heaven—a 
sample on hand of the identical good, 
which, in larger measure and purer qua- 
lity, is afterwards awaiting us—an en- 





AND NOT A LOCALITY. [SERM. 
By the doctrine of justification through 
faith, we understand that Christ pur- 
chased our right of admittance into 
heaven—or opened its door for us. Is | 
there aught antinomian in this? The 
obstacle, the legal obstacle, between us 
and a life of prosperous and never-end- 
ing virtue, is now broken down ; and is 
it upon that event, that we are to relin- 
quish the path which has just been 
opened to welcome and invite our ad- 
vancing footsteps? The doctrine of jus- 
tification by faith is not an obstacle to 
virtue—it is but an introduction to it. It 
is in truth the removal of an obstacle— 


ithe unfastening of that drag which be- 
| fore held us in apathy and despair; and 


restrained us from breaking forth on that 
career of obedience, in which, with the 
hope of glory before us, we purify our- 
selves even as Christ is pure. The pur- 
pose of His death was not to supersede, 
but to stimulate our obedience. “ He 
gave himself for us to redeem us from 
all iniquity and purify to himself a pe- 
culiar people zealous of good works.” 
The object of His promises is not to lull 
our indolence, but rouse us to activity. 
“ Having received these promises there- 
fore, dearly beloved, let us cleanse our- 
selves from all filthiness of the flesh and 
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of 
God.” 

We expatiate no further ; but shall be 
happy, if, as the fruit of these imperfect 
observations, you can be made to recog: 
nise how distinctly practical a business 
the work of Christianity is. It is simply , 
to destroy one character, and to build up 
another in its room; to resist the tempta- 
tions which vitiate and debase, and make 
all the graces and moralities which enter 
into the composition of perfect virtue the 
objects of our most strenuous cultivation, 
In the expediting of this mighty trans- 
formation, on the completion of which 


these future states of existence, were dis 


trance on the path which leads to heaven; | there hinges our eternity, we have need 
or rather an actual lodgement of ourselves | of believing prayer ;'a thorough renun- 
within that line of demarcation which |ciation of all dependence on our own 
separates the heaven of the New 'Testa-| strength; a thorough reliance on the 
ment from the hell of the New Testament. | proffered strength and aid of the upper 
For heaven is not so much a locality as | sanctuary ; a deep sense of our infirmi- 
a character ; and we, by a moral transi-| ties, and constant application for that 
tion from the old to the new character, | Spirit who has promised to help them— 
have in fact crossed the threshold, and | that, in the language of the Apostle we 
are now rejoicing within the confines of | may strive mightily, according to the 
God’s spiritual! family. grace which worketh in us mightly. 





» 


xLim.] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 


SERMON XLIII. 


Light in Darkness. 
A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE CONVOCATION OF MINISTERS IN EDINBURGB. 
_ “Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness.”—PsaLM. cx. 4. 


The great lesson in this text is the con- ; instead of this, if it be singly and devo 
nection which obtains between integrity \tedly intent on the one thing needful —“ if 
of purpose and clearness of perception— thine eye be thus single, thy whole body 
insomuch that a duteous conformity to shall be full of light.’ Too the same pur- 
what is right, is generally followed up pose we are told by the Saviour, “If a 
by a ready and luminous discernment of man hath my commandments and keep- 


what istrue. It tells us that if we have 
but grace to do as we ought, we shall be 
made to see as we ought; or, in other 
words, that, if right morally, we are in 
the high way of becoming right intel- 
lectually. This great lesson of a connec- 
tion between the right and the true—of a 
strong reciprocal influence between the 
heart on the one hand, and the under- 
standing on the other—of an action and 
reaction between the moral and intellec- 
tual departments of our nature. We say 
of this, that it is a lesson repeatedly af- 
firmed in Scripture, and that in various 
places both of the Old and the New Tes- 
tament. “'I'he path of the just is as the 
shining Jight, that shineth more and more 
unto the perfect day.” “ Righteousness 
keepeth the upright in the way.” “ Light 
is sown for the righteous.” Or, still more 
specifically —** To him that ordereth his 
conversation aright will I show the sal- 
vation of God.” “ The secret ofthe Lord 
is with them that fear Him, and He will 
show them his covenant.” To the same 
purpose there is that magnificent passage 
in Isaiah, where he tells the Israelites of 
those acts of charity and uprightness 
which form an acceptable fast unto the 
Lord, and after the enumeration of which, 
he makes the moral effloresce thus into 
the intellectual—* And then shall his 
light break forth as the morning, and the 
glory of the Lord shall be his reward, 
and the Lord shall guide him continual- 
ly.” We have repeated averments to the 
like effect in the New Testament. “If 
thine eye be single”—that is, not vacil- 
lating doubly and ambiguously between 
God and the world, between a treasure 
on earth and a treasure in heaven; but, 
47 


eth them, to him will I manifest myself.” 
All proving a relationship, in the order 
of cause and effect, between our being led 
to do arightand our being made to discern 
aright; or, in other words, all proving 
that the commandment of the Lord has 
not only the property of guiding the foot: 
steps, but also of enlightening the eyes. 
And before proceeding further, we 
may as well exhibit a few of those passa- 
ges, which lay before us the reverse pro 
cess of a connection between disobedience 
and spiritual darkness, in counterpart tn 
the connection between obedience and 
spiritual discernment. “ The way of the 
wicked is as darkness, they know not at 
what they stumble.” If thine eye be evil, 
thy whole body shall be full of darkness.’' 
It is because their deeds are evil that thev 
love the darkness, and so are enveloped 
therein. The frightful progress of de- 
generacy, as represented in the first chap 
ter of the Romans, is but a series of des. 
cending steps from darkness to a more 
sunken and abandoned vice ; and, recip 
rocally, from vice toa more hopeless and 
profound darkness. He that lacketh the 
virtues of the gospel, says Peter, is blind, 
and cannot see afar off’ He that hateth 
his brother, says John, is in darkness, and 
walketh in darkness, and knoweth not 
whither le goeth, because darkness hath 
blinded his eyes—all evidences which 
might be multiplied tenfold, of the close 
and powerful reciprocity which obtains 
between these two elements, the will and 
the understanding—insomuch that either 
a rectitude or an obliquity in the one, wilh 
lead to a like rectitude and a like perver- 
sity in the other also. 
This remarkable, and certainly moat 





j 


371) LIGHT IN 


important mental phenomenon, if it may 
be so called, admits of a twofold explana- 
tion—one a natural, another a Chris- 
tian explanation. In attempting to lay 
down the former, we might, if we had 
the time for it, and were this the place for 
philosophising in such a walk of inquiry, 
we might expatiate both on the darkening 
and the illuminating processes; and tell 
what the laws or what the tendencies of 
mind, which were concerned in them. 
We could, perhaps, in the first place have 

demonstrated wherein lay the sophistry 

of evil affections ; and how it is that if, in 

virtue of their lawless usurpation, con- 

science is for a time disposted from her 

supremacy—the objects of mental vision 

are distorted thereby, and seen in an in- 

verted order or seen out of their places. 

We might thus have made palpable the 

darkening and disturbing influence of a 

moral anarchy, so as to disqualify for 

right perceptions; and to overcloud, if 

we may term it, the panorama of the soul, 

or whole region of its contemplations. 

And on the other hand, we believe it 

could be made manifest, why the element 

of moral rectitude becomes also an ele- 

ment or medium of intellectual transpa- 

rency—insomuch, that if right principles 

are in play, such is the mechanism of our 

spiritual nature, right perceptions will 

come in the train of them; and that in 

virtue of our moral or spiritual well-be- 

ing, we see things in a truer perspective, 
nd with a Jarger command over the do- 
main of human thought. Some have 
earried:this speculation so far, and main- 
tained such to be the connection between 
righteouness and truth, or such the con- 
nection between a clear conscience anda 
¢lear intellect, that its influence is felt even 
in the investigations of physical science ; 
and that at all events it is of paramount 
efficacy in the guidance and enlighten- 
ment of the mind, when treating of moral 
and practical questions. 

It is obvious that this is a topic on 
which we cannet here dwell, and will 
therefore hasten onward to our Christian | 
explanation of the phenomenon in ques- 
tion; and which we thus term only for 
the purpose of distinetion, because there | 
is no discrepancy betweea it and the na- 
tural explanation. There is in truth a 
marvellous harmony betweea the econo- 
my of nature and the economy of grace; 





DARKNESS. [SERM. 
and though it be the Spirit of God whois 
the undoubted author of all that distin- 
guishes the children of light from the 
children of this world, yet it will gener- 
ally be found, we believe, that even at the 
very time when He works most influen- 
tially, and with greatest power in the 
heart of man, He does it without violence, 


and so as not to overbear the laws of the | 


human spirit, or any of the processes of 
our mental philosophy. But neither can 
we linger at this topic; and will there- 
fore at once state what we hold to be the 
real ligament of connection between the 
uprightness of our text and the light 
which ariseth out of darkness. ‘The 
link of concatenation then which binds 
together these two elements—the inter- 
vening power who makes sure the con- 
nection between them—is this same 
Spirit of God, who will not suffer the up- 
right to walk in darkness, but will guide 
him to all needful truth; and more par- 
ticularly, when beset with perplexities on 
every side, and uncertain where to turn, 
this beneficent agent opens a way for 


him to walk in—and, causing the word 


of God to shine upon all the intricacies 
which are before him, makes it a lamp 
unto his feet and a light unto his path. 
For observe the functions ascribed to the 
Spirit of God throughout the Bible. 
These are exceedingly various; for, 
Author as He is of every good and every 
perfect gift, He adapts His ministrations 
to all the moral and all the mental exi- 
gencies of our nature. He at one time 
Inspires the purposes of integrity, and 
gives strength for the execution of them; 
and at another he operates on the under- 
standings of men—causing them to ap- 
prehend aright, not only in the general 
that truth which is unto salvation ; but, 
helping them in every time of need, 
teaches how to strike out the path of wis- 
dom and of duty amid the difficulties with 
which they are encompassed. Consider 
Him then as the fountain both of our 
light and of our strength; and couple 
with this the undoubted Scripture infor- 
mation, that, in dealing with the spirits of 
men, He, personal agent as He is, is per- 
sona ly affected by our treatment of Him- 
self, and more particularly by the use we 
make, be it faithful or unfaithful, of the 
gifts he may have been pleased to bestow 
on us-—at one time grieved, resisted, 


SRA ee te 


XL] 


finally quenched, nay at length provoked 
to abandon us forever, either when we act 
not up to the light He hath imparted, or 
when we fail in being so diligent and la- 
borious as we ought with the strength 
He has imparted—at another time pleased 
and encouraged, just as a master is with 
the docility of his pupils, when we do all 
we might and all we ought either with 
the power wherewith He enables us to 
obey, or with the light whereby He en- 
ables us to discern, and so follows it up 
both with larger powers and larger mani- 
festations—thus fulfillmg His own de- 
clarations that he who hath to him more 
shall be given; but from him who hath 
not shall be taken away even that which 
he hath—and more especially this most 
pregnant and precious deliverance, that 
the Holy Ghost shall be given to those 
who obey Him. It is thus that He con- 
ducts us onward from the humble? to the 
higher lessons of this His moral and 
spiritual discipline. And it is this peculiar 
economy of His, this system of moral 
penalties and rewards if it may be so 
termed, which establishes the connection 
between disobedience and spiritual dark- 
ness on the one hand, between obedience 
and spiritual discernment on the other. 
With this explanation of the method by 
which these two elements act and react 
into each other’s hands, we should be at 
no loss to understand how it is, that if 
made to do aright, we are also made to see 
ari¢ht—how it is that to the upright a 
light ariseth out of darkness ; and that a 
guidance as well as a glory from the 
Lord is made to shine upon all their 
ways. 

And what completes this solution, and 
carries it onward to effect and fulfilment, is 
that the Holy Spirit is given to our 
prayers. If weare indeed in earnest—if 
‘it is our single-minded and our intense 
desire to be as God would have us and to 
do as God would have us—if the supreme 
moral ambition by which these bosoms 
of ours are actuated is to be right, striving 
with all honesty both to find out the will of 
our heavenly Master and to do it. These 
longings and aspirations of the soul will 
vent themselves in prayer; and, this be- 
ing the prayer not of the hypocrite which 
is His abomination, but of the upright, 
and so His delight, will be followed up 


by the glorious verification of His own | 


LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 


» 


37k 


assurances to His own children—helpless 
without His aid, and so ever keeping by 
Him, and cleaving to Him as all their 
dependence and all their desire. More 
especially let me single out this assurance, 
the most comforting of all to those who 
are in perplexity—“If any of you lack 
wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth 
unto all men liberally and upbraideth 
not; and it shall be given him. But let 
him ask in faith nothing wavering, for 
he that wavereth is like a wave of the 
sea driven with the wind and tossed. For 
let not that man think that he shall re- 
ceive anything of the Lord. A double- 
minded man is unstable in all his ways.” 

Before proceeding to any special ap- 
plication of the doctrine which has now 
been propounded, let me, with all possible 
brevity, interpose two general observa- 
tions. , 

First, then, let us observe of evangelical 
Christianity, which many regard as ex- 
clusively a doctrinal, how pre-eminently 
and emphatically we might say of it that 
it is a practical system. In this system, 
doctrine and practice are most intimately 
blended. And it is not saying all for this 
to say that the doctrine supplies the mo- 
tives and the considerations which impe! 
to practice. There is more in it than this. 
Practice by a sort of reflex influence casts 
back a light on the principles which gave 
it birth; and so, as if not to discover, at 
least to irradiate the doctrine into brighter 
manifestation. ‘The two influences have 
a reciprocating virtue, the one on the 
other; and so change places as, in the 
language of science, to become antece- 
dents and consequents alternately, and 
they are such alternate sequences as these 
which make out an historical progression 
in the life, and build up a resulting char- 
acter in the state of a believer—the 
brighter faith ever germinating a holier 
practice, and the holier practice repaying 
the obligation by issuing in a clearer and 
more confirmed faith. It is the agency 
of God’s Spirit, we again say, which re- 
solves this mystery. He, the fountain 
of our strength, works in us both to will 
and to do; and if we, in obedience to 
His impulse and by His strength work 
out the bidden duties of the gospel, He, 
the fountain of our light, taking of the 
things of Christ and showing them to 
our souls, sheds a more vivid illumina- 


342 


tion than before on the doctrines of the 
gospel It is thus that faith and works 
which are made to stand in such a con- 
troversial attitude to each other as de- 
scribed in the pages of authorship, when 
realized on the living man, meet together 
in fullest consent and harmony. When 
brought into actual co-operation, they are 
found not to be conflicting but conspiring 
forces. They grow with each other’s 
growth, they strengthen with each other’s 
strength. 

But secondly, this most beautiful and 
beneficent law, by which the conscience 
and understanding are so related to each 
other, that the latter is all the more spir- 
itually enlightened in things doctrinal, 
in proportion as the former is obeyed in 
things practical and moral—it is a law 
which meets with its daily exemplifica- 
tions in the high and hidden walks of 
Christian experience. We can only 
afford to mention two specimens of this. 
The first is that of Augustine at the com- 
mencement of his Christianity, who for 
years had groped in darkness and deep- 
est spiritual distress after the truth as itis 
in Jesus—seeking’ for peace with God 
and finding none, and making a thousand 
fruitless and fatiguing efforts to force the 
barrier, which intercepted from the view 
of his mind the mercies of the gospel. 
The truth is, he had long been the 
bondsman of one of those degrading af- 
fections which war against the soul—a 
tyrant appetite which not only enslaved 
but darkened him. So long as the pas- 
sion retained its mastery did the under- 
standing remain overclouded, and not 
till after many a weary struggle he re- 
solved with full effect on the conclusive 
sacrifice, did he break loose from the im- 
prisoament which held him. No sooner 
was he emancipated from the thraldom 
of a forbidden pleasure, than his whole 
faculties, as if by the removal of a stric- 
ture, were set at liberty ; and the same 
Spirit who strengthened him for the 
moral conquest over a besetting sin, ush- 
ered him into the light ofa glorious mani- 
festation. When the chains of a most 
degrading bondage fell from his person, 
then the scales feil from his eyes. This 
is the real substance of church history ; 
and it most strikingly corroborates the 
lesson of our text, when we find in the 


case of Augustine, that a great prastical | 


LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 


[SERM. 


achievement and a great doctrinal en- 
largement went hand in hand—insomuch 
that it may be said of this noblest cham- 
pion of orthodoxy in ancient times, that, 
contemporaneously with his most strenu- 
ous performance of a thing essential to 
be done, was his at length clear and con- 
fident perception of a thing essential to 
be believed; and it forms indeed a mag- 
nificent illustration of the harmony be- 
tween faith and works, that on the mo- 
ment when the Spirit enabled him for an 
indispensable act of personal righteous- 
ness, did he reveal the imputed righteous- — 
ness of Christ as the alone ground of a 
sinner’s justification, and which hence- 
forth became the rest and the rejoicing 
of his soul. 

Our second specimen is that of a Chris- 
tian in modern times, alike eminent with 
Augustine in the highest fields both of 
Christian experience and Christian au- 
thorship—we mean Jonathan Edwards, 
of America, who tells us in his most in- 
structive diary, as the general result of 
all his experience, that his seasons of 
greatest temptation, and which therefore 
when overcome gave birth to the greatest 
of his moral victories, were followed up 
by his seasons of brightest illumination ; 
and that never were his views both of 
duty and of doctrine more transparent 
and exhilarating, than when carried in 
triumph through those more arduous 
contests of principle, which overbear the 
almost, but which serve the more to con- 
firm and to elevate and to signalize the 
altogether Christian. 

But we must now be done with these 
generalities, on which we never should 
have ventured to give so bare an outline, 
so brief and synoptical a view from the 
pulpit, were it not for the audience of able 
and accomplished theologians now before 
me, who know well how to fill up the. 
deficiencies of our rapid and imperfect 
sketch ; and, aware of the extreme diffi- 
culty which attends the compression of 
much within little room, will I am sure 
award to me their indulgence, and that 
in very proportion to their intelligence in 
these things. We now proceed then to 
our special applications, premising in one 
sentence that the light which follows in 
the train of uprightness, is not always 
that general or doctrinal light which may 
be termed the light of salyation—but, 


XLII. ] 


more specifically, that light which shows 
to an inquirer when in perplexity, the 
path in which he should walk. It is a 
common proverb, that where there is a 
will there is a way, and the lesson on 
which we are now to build the few ob- 
servations which it remains for us to 
make, may be regarded as the exaltation 
of this proverb, or if you will, the reli- 
gious version of it. And the lesson is 
shortly this—that if it be your intent and 
resolved will in the face of every trial, to 
do what is right in the sight of God, God 
will open up a way for you. It is a lesson 
in perfect keeping with that most impor- 
tant verse. that if any is willing to do the 
will of God, he shall know of Christ’s 
doctrine whether it be of God. In other 
words, he who willeth aright shall be 
made to know aright. 

In order then that our text may be 
brought to bear with effect on your pre- 
sent circumstances, we should attend to 
what the darkness is in which you are 
now involved; and what the light is 
which, if made to arise, would clear it 
away. ‘There is one very obvious cause 
of difficulty, and so of darkness in any 
question, whether of wisdom or duty; 
and that is when, made up of various ele- 
ments, the solution of it hinges, not on a 
single but on several, nay perhaps on 
many considerations. The well known 
effect of complication is to obscure any 
subject, and so it may be as to make the 
treatment of it tenfold more arduous and 
unmanageable than before. This holds 
true even of such topics as are purely in- 
tellectual; and there is no class of pro- 
found thinkers more thoroughly aware 
of it, than those who have laboured and 
with most success on the high walk of 
the physical and mathematical sciences. 
One of the best examples that can be 
given is the problem of the three bodies. 
It is comparatively an easy task-to calcu- 
late the path of the earth’s movements— 
when, having only to do with two bodies, 
you view it as acted upon only by its 
gravitation tothe sun,; but it has a gravi- 
tation also towards the moon, and it is not 
to be told how much the introduction of 
this new element has added to the diffi- 
culty of the task. And the difficulty is 
enhanced in a rapidly increasing and 
multiple ratio, if you admit more forces 
mto the computation; or take into your 


L.GHT N DARKNESS. 


” 


373 


reckoning one planetary influence after 
another, and so as to require at each of 
these successive stretches a fresh draught 
on a stil] higher and more recondite cal- 
culus than before—till far out of sight 
and lost to the eye of the general world, 
the whole speculation to ordinary minds 
becomes utterly inextricable. 

Now if there is something so very 
baffling in the mere complexity of a sub- 
ject, what it may well be thought can be 
so utterly hopeless, than that we shall 
come to a clear and satisfactory determi- 
nation on our own church question—a ~ 
question which, if not made up, has at 
least been mixed up with many and di- 
verse elements. We are first told of the 
Bibles as being the great statute-book of 
heaven, and of the paramount authority 
which belongs to its requirements ; but 
this has been brought into comparison, 
nay into conflict, with a statute-book on 
earth—that we mean of the civil gov- 
ernment under which we live; and 
in that oft-repeated watch-word, the 
law of the land, we are told of the 
authority which belongs to its require- 
ments. Then we are told of the duty we 
owe to God, as being our first and great- 
est obligation ; but to honour the king and 
to obey magistrates—these also are du- 
ties, graven and inscribed. as heaven's 
own laws on the tablet of revelation. 
Next we are told of religious liberty, or 
liberty in things ecclesiastical, as being 
the inviolable birth-right of every Chris- 
tian; but we further hear that for the 
sake of its advantages, we have consented 
to the terms of a National Establishment 
—and then the relations of Church and 
State come into play, and serve if not to 
perplex, at least mightily to complicate 
the argument. And then to bring our 
instances to a close, of which we have 
only selected a few without nearly ex- 
hausting them, we may often listen to a 
learned discourse on temporalities and 
spiritualities, and the line of demarcation 
between them; and if we are not pre- 
sented by this with any new conception, 
at least a new nomenclature has been 
brought to our ears—fitted, were it for no- 
thing else, to throw a deeper disguise 
over the question, and still more to im- 
press thousands with the conviction, that 
altogether it is a question which is too 
many for them. Certain it is that such 


374 LIGHT IN 
a confession is often heard .o escape from 
he lips of those innumerable talkers upon 
-his most engrossing at present of all sub- 
jects. They candidly admi: that they 
have not a head for it; and so the con- 
viction grows apace throughout that nu- 
merous class of society, who think but 
cuisorily and superficially on every ques- 
tlon, that ours is indeed the most helpless 
and irreducible of all speculations. 

But while such is the aspect which our 
question bears to the precipitate and the 
careless, let me not be understood to re- 
present it as so very recondite, so very 
imaccessible, that, were but the attention 
fully given, one even of an ordinary mind 
might not find his way through it. The 
truth is that there might be the semblance 
of a collision between various duties, and 
yet notwithstanding a decisive and clear 
path. For example, it is the indispensa- 
ble duty of every Christian to be pure, 
and it is his duty to be peaceable. If it 
be possible as much as lieth in you live 
peaceably with all men. But it may so 
happen that the maintenance of these two 
virtues, the graces of purity and peace, at 
the same time or_on the same occasion, 
might not be possible. But the scriptural 
deliverance of first pure and then peace- 
able, here interposes its authoritative sanc- 
tion, and relieves us from all ambiguity. 
In like manner the supreme, the indis- 
pensable duty of every creature is to obey 
God. But it is the duty of every subject 
to obey magistrates, and this too is the 
oft-repeated injunction of the New Testa- 
ment. But there may, as systematically 
and for whole generations together in the 
primitive ages of our faith; and there 
may, as incidentally and for these few 
years back in our own land, be a collision 
between these two authorities—when as 
before the perplexity is again cut short by 
the scriptural saying, We ought to obey 
God rather than man. Here comes in 
one grand principle which simplifies all 
because it subordinates all; and, like the 
rod of Aaron, swallows up the rods of the 
magicians. ‘Thus it is that one great 
virtue of central and presiding authority 
over the rest, has borne our church 
through her hitherto upright and consist- 
ent way, in the midst of every attempt to 
seduce or to frighten her sons from their 


propriety ; nor has it yet been given to all | 


the skill and machinations of her adver- 








DARKNESS. [SERM 
saries, to enchant her from the path of 
allegiance to her God. 

But the darkness of which I have 
hitherto spoken—that proceeding from 
the complexity alone of any given ques- 
tion, and presenting but an intellectual 
difficulty in the way of its solution—may 
be overcome by dint of a more stedfast 
and persevering attention, or more vigor- 
ous appliance than before of the merely 
intellectual powers. But there is another 
sort of darkness, proceeding from a 
wholly distinct source, and only to be 
overcome in another way—we mean the 
darkness which gathers over a question 
on which our own personal interest is sus- 
pended, and where the judgment of man 
is apt to be blinded and bewildered by 
that most deceitful of all sophistry, the 
sophistry of his own affections—when in 
balancing between two terms of an alter- 
native self intervenes with its mighty and 
preponderating bias, and turns the scale 
against the whole weight of reason and 
conscience on the other side; or, to ex- 
press it otherwise, when the objects of de- 
liberation are seen through a medium of 
selfishness, and though not complicated, 
are at least mightily bedimmed and dis- 
torted thereby. It is the darkness thus 
originated which our text has properly to 
do with, because a darkness which for 
the dispersion of it needs not so much an 
intellectual as a moral counteractive. It 
is obviously that sort of darkness which 
integrity of heart and of purpose is fitted 
to dispel—a darkness you will observe 
which settles and sits fast on the minds 
of the sordid and the fearful; but which 
vanishes and gives way before the un- 
troubled eye of him, whose serene and 
single-minded purpose it is to be as he 
ought, and to do as he ought. 

And now my venerable fathers and 
brethren of the Established Church of 
Scotland, I will not speak of it as a cer- 
tainty, that if you persevere in the high 
walk of uprightness on which you have 
entered, the secularities of that Exstablish- 
ment will be wrested from your hands. 


It would not be venturing far however to 


speak of it asa probability, and a hazard ; 
and surely, at the very least, not to speak 
of it asa possibility were downright af- 
fectation. In this its lowest and least ap- 
palling form, you have been in the habit 
of regarding it for years; and even when 


e 


XLII. | 


a crisis was obviously drawing nearer, 
and the symptoms of some great and ap- 
proaching overthrow looked more me- 
nacing than before—let the majorities 
of our church attest whether they have 
been the calculations of worldly prudence, 
or the high behests of principle, which 
had the ascendant over you, And still I 


rejoice to believe, that, whatever be the 


2° 


shades or diversities of sentiment upon 
lesser questions, the tie of that great and 
common principle which hitherto has 
bound us together remains unbroken— 
that I speak in the hearing of men firmly 
resolved as ever to lose all and to suffer 
all, rather than surrender the birth-right 
of those prerogatives which we inherit 
from our fathers, or compromise the sa- 
cred liberty wherewith Christ has made 
us free-—of men whose paramount ques- 
tion is what is duty, that best stepping- 
stone to the solution of the other question, 
what is wisdom. For it is when in this 
spirit of uprightness, this blessed frame 
of simplicity and godly sincerity, that 
light is made to arise, and Wisdom is 
justified of her children. 

This is not the place for attempting 
any specific delineation of the path which 
wisdom prescribes in our present event- 
ful circumstances; nor will I utter one 
word that might indicate my opinion or 
even my leanings on the question, of 
what specifically and practically the 
church at present ought to do. But 
surely this is the place for urging both 
on myself and others, the moral prepara- 
tion which all experience demonstrates to 
have an enlightening effect upon the un- 
derstanding, and all Scripture affirms to 
be of sovereign efficacy in bringing down 
the Spirit of wisdom from above. This 
has been the object of your prayers ; and 
it is the identical object, however feeble 
in execution, of our preaching. The 
great lesson of our text 1s, that if we pur- 
pose aright, we shall be made to see 
aright; and that the integrity of our wills 
shall be followed up by light in the un- 
derstandings. God will not abandon to 


LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 


375 


helper, and I will not fear what man can 
do unto me. The man who can lift this 
honest and unfaltering prayer—Search 
me, O God, and know my heart; try me 
and know my thoughts, and see if there 
be any wicked way in me, and lead me 
in the way everlasting—the man who can 
say this fearlessly, has nothing else to fear. 
God will establish the just—for it is said 
the righteous God trieth the heart and 
reins. Commit then thy works to the 
Lord, and thy thoughts shall be estab- 
lished. In all thy ways acknowledge 
Him, and He shall direct thy paths. It is 
He who by the light of his Holy Spirit 
makes good the connection between sin- 
gleness of purpose and wisdom of con- 
duct; and thus I understand the text, that 
He maketh wise the simple, and giveth 
understanding to the simple. Ye men 
of God, who make the Bible the supreme 
directory of your hearts and consciences, 
you will not be long left in uncertainty. 
He will make your way clear and open 
before you.—If before Him we come with 
the docility of little children, He will 
cause us in understanding to be men. 
He that is spiritual judgeth all things; 
and though, because himself judged of no 
man, he may be the object of derision 
and contempt to a world that does not 
comprehend him—yet if thou commit thy 
way unto the Lord and trust also to Him. 
He shall bring it to pass; and He shall 
bring forth thy righteousness as the light, 
and thy judgment as the noon-day. Teach 
me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a 
plain path, because of mine enemies. The 
Lord is my light and my salvation, whom 
shall I fear. The Lord is the strength 
of my life, of whom shall I be afraid ?— 
Though a host should encamp against 
me my heart shall not fear. ‘Though 
war should arise against me, in this will 
I be confident. For in the time of trouble 
He will hide me in His pavilion; in the 
secret of His tabernacle shall he hide 
me. He shall set me upon a rock. And 
now shall mine head be lifted up above 
mine enemies round about me. There- 


darkness those who cast their care and | fore will I offer in his tabernacle sacri- 


their confidence upon Himself; and who 
can say with the apostle—He is my 


fices of joy: I will sing, yea [ willsing 


' praises to the Lord. 


376 THE OUTWARD BUSINESS OF THE HOJSE OF GOD. [SERM. 
SERMON XLIV. 
The Outward Business of the House of God. 
A SERMON PREACHED AT GLASGOW, OCTOBER 16, 1843. 


“And Shabbethai and Jozabad, of the chief of the Levites, had the oversight of the outward 
business of the house of Cod. ”__N EHEMIAH, xi, 16. 


‘l'ae outward business of the house of 
(xod is of chief necessity and importance 
nt the commencement of a Church, or at 
some of those great changes and enlarge- 
ments which it is often made to undergo. 
At the outset of the Jewish Church, be- 
side the regulations for the maintenance 
of the priesthood and distribution of the 
various offices, we read much of the 
time and labour expended on the struc- 
ture of the tabernacle. ‘The same thing 
might be observed on the occasion of 
great enlargements, or revivals, or deliv- 
erances,—as at the rearing and succes- 
sive great repairs of the temple in Jerusa- 
lem ; and more noticeably still in the do- 
ings of Ezra and Nehemiah, on their re- 
turn from their captivity, and the re-es- 
tablishment both of their national and 
sacred polity. At the commencement, 
too, of the Christian Church, he who was 
the most gifted of its apostles—though 
pre-eminently a man of faith and prayer, 
and perhaps the most conversant among 
them in the vitalities of that high and 
hidden walk which constitutes the new 
obedience of the gospel—still did he busy 
himself most of all with the matters of a 
mere external regulation, as journeys and 
collections, and the various questions of 
Church government and Church order. 
And descending from these primitive to 
later and uninspired times, where shall 
we find a more striking exemplification 
of the same union, than a among the fathers 
of our own Church? We mean the de- 
votedness of their piety as combined with 
ihe varied and profound wisdom of their 
economics. Had their conceptions all 
been realized, on the subject of schools 


and colleges, and a provision for the | 


poor, as well as the various parts and | 


offices of our great ecclesiastical institute, | 
never, perhaps, was a more goodly ap- | 
paratus devised, not for the Christian ‘n- of the Free Church of Scotland. 


struction alone, but for the moral , nay for | 





the civil and secular well-being of the 
people in any land. Though these con- 
ceptions were not realised, though they 
were frustrated by the resistance of men 
in power, and by the unprincipled rapa- 
city of the nobles in these days—this 
should not prevent us from doing ho- 
mage to the conceptions themselves, as 
having been fraught with all the wisdom 
of experience, and of profoundest skill 
in the management, we could even say 
the philosophy, of human affairs, 

Let us, therefore take a lesson from 
these oreat master spirits of a former age. 
Their spirituality did not so monopolise 
them, as to dispossess from their minds 
all value for the matters of external regu- 
lation, or cause them to under-rate as an 
object unworthy of their most earnest at- 
tention the outward business of the house 
of God. Bishop Butler has written a 
sermon, the least known of his works, on 
the use of externals in religion. But his 
topic is not exactly ours; for what he 
philosophises on is ‘chiefly the influence 
of form, and ceremony, and music, and 
investiture, and such other visible accom- 


| paniments, on the devotional feelings of 


a worshipper. This is not just our sub- 
ject, which relates more to the polity and 
plat or platform of a Church as distin- 
guished from its doctrine, and from all 
that discipline which has to do with the 
moral and religious state of those who 
partake in its ordinances. The outward 
forms are not altogether the same with 
the outivard business of the house of God. 

Yetthe inward should take precedency 
»f the outward, both in the order of influ- 
ence and in the order of time. And it 
was, we trust, the force of a strong in- 
ward sentiment which led to our recent 

memorable disruption from the now 
Enthralled, and the consequent formation 


‘an inward and a right spirit, we hope, 


It wags~ 


» 
ea it, * 


XLIV.] THE OUTWARD BUSINESS 
which animated the devotions and ..e 
doings of its First General Assembly. 
It has, we are confidently persuaded, 
been an inward principle all along, which 
has borne up her ministers in the midst 
of their painful surrenders and arduous 
services; and which, most difficult of all, 
has hitherto maintained amongst them all 
the charities of a substantial harmony and 
peace ; and that, too, when engaged with 
such hazardous and exciting topics, as 
on the arena of an earthly politics, would 
have stirred up all the passions of a fierce 
and heated partizanship. But the in- 
ward principle should not prevent, nay 


the very strength of it will prompt us| 


onward to the outward business of the 
house of God. 'I’o these it falls, neces- 
sarily and naturally, that we should now 
address ourselves It will form a main 
object in our present Assembly; and it 
is for this reason that I have selected our 
text, and propose to found upon it some 
remarks on the importance of such other 


things as are to come under the deliber- | 


ative wisdom of my Fathers and Breth- 
ren, and on their subserviency to that 
spiritual religion, which, not as a main 


ingredient only, but in its very substance | 
and being, forms the great staple or ele- | 
ment in the vital prosperity of a Church. | 


First, then, there is nothing in the 
dostrine of a spiritual influence, or in the 
undoubted position that whatever 


the Holy Spirit's operation—there is no- 


thing in all this which supersedes the im- | 
portance or the uses of an external ma-_ 
chinery, the setting up of which and the. 


working of which belong to the outward 
business of the house of God. It is very 
true that no man is savingly enlightened 
in the doctrines of the Gospel, or strength- 
ened and enabled for the performance of 
its duties, but by the demonstration and 
power of the Spirit upon his soul. Yet, 


as it is only through the Bible that He 


enlightens, opening our eyes to behold 
the wondrous things contained in this 
book; and as when He works in man to 
will and to do, and so to set him a-work- 
ing, still it is by giving enforcement and 
effect to the lessons of this said Bible— 
there is positively nothing in the doctrine 
of a celestial agency which should at all 
set aside the terrestrial operation of mul- 
tiplying and disseminating by thousands 


is | 
good or true in religion isthe product of | 


» 


OF THE HOUSE OF GOD. 


- 


f 


37 
| of sopies the Word of God, which can. 
only be done by means of these very out 
ward things, the construction of printing 
presses. And what is true of the word 
read in private is alike true of the word 
spoken in public, that it only takes effect 
when the Spirit sends it home; but this 
requires that men should not forsake the 
assembling of themselves together, and so 
requires another preparation of outward 
things—even the erection of numerous 
churches all over the land. Our Saviour 
after his resurrection bade the apostles go 
ito Jerusalem, and wait there till they 
‘should be endued with power from on 
high; or, in other words, there was a 
certain outward thing which they were 
told to do, ere the inward grace or Inward 
illumination could be conferred upon 
them. The doctrine of a supernatural 
influence from heaven above did not su- 
persede, nay, it required a given natural 
performance beforehand on the earth be- 
low, even that of bending their footsteps 
to the place which the Saviour’s precept 
| pointed out, and where the Saviour’s pro- 
mise was to be fulfilled upon them. And 
still there are not only certain prescribed 
performances, but certain appointed 
places of meeting between the Spirit of 
God and the spirit of men; and, to make 
out the co-operation which this imphes, 
man has. to work outwardly, and with the 
powers of his body, while God works in- 
wardly on the functions and faculties of 
his soul. One of these places is the Bible, 
which it is our part duteously and dili- 
gently to read and give earnest heed unto 
—aye and until the day dawns and the 
day-star arises in our hearts, even by 
/God opening our eyes to behold the 
| wondrous things contained in His law. 
| Another of these places is the church, 
_where we are bidden assemble ourselves 
‘together, even as Cornelius was bidden 
hold a church in his house, that both he 
and his family might hear the words of 
Peter; and, as then, so now, it is while 
ithe minister is in the act of speaking that 
‘the Holy Ghost often falls on the earnest 
and attentive listener when in the act of 
hearing. We must not slight the natural 
performance, though of no value singly 
or apart, or without the supernatural en- 
dowment ; and stil] less when the one is 
the prescribed road to the other—even 
_as the apostles when on the road to Jeru- 


‘ 











378 THE OUTWARD BUSINESS 
salem were on the road to the high and 
heavenly illuminations of the day of Pen- 
tecost. And, yet, when doing these 
things, it is with outward things that we 
are engaged in the doing of; and, so also, 
when laying down the forms, and the 
processes, and the offices of a church, in 
obedience to the commandment of Him 
who says, “ Let all things be done de- 
cently and in order.” Had the apostles 
disobeyed, and not gone to Jerusalem, 
they would have waited in vain at an 
other than the bidden place for the illu- 
minations of Pentecost. And should we 
neglect either our reading of the Bible, 
or our acts of attendance on the house of 
prayer, we have no reason to expect that 
in any other than such bidden ways will 
the Spirit of God descend upon our souls. 
And thus, too, it is, that should the guides 
and the rulers of our ecclesiastical polity 
fail in providing either a right scriptural 
education, or the services of a rightly or- 
dered church for the people of the land— 
outward things as schools and churches 
are, and outward business as it is to build 
up a framework or construct a directory 
of public worship; yet if these things are 
not done, and done rightly, a spiritual 
barrenness might otherwise rest upon our 
territory, and our else fertile land, by the 
showers of grace being withheld from it, 
might, in the spiritual sense of the term, 
- remain a dreary and desolate wilderness. 
Let it not therefore be said of these 
views that they go to materialise religion. 
On the contrary it is cur direct aim to 
spiritualise it—as much so as it was that 
ofthe Apostles when they performed the 
outward thing of going up to Jerusalem 
with the object of waiting there till they 
should be endued with power from on 
high—or as much so as the devout and 
desirous reader of his Bible, who, while 
engaged and persevering in this outward 
exercise, gives earnest heed thereunto, 
till the day dawn and the day-star arise 
in his heart. Did we stop short at the 
routine of mechanical observance of these 
things, this would be to materialise reli- 
gion; but this we leave to wretched 
Puseyism when satisfied with the opus 
operatum, after having acquitted its repe- 
titions on the service-book, or its genu- 
flections before the illuminated altar. Our 
churches and sacraments are not the 
resting places of a deceitful security—but 


OF THE .IOUSE OF GOD. [SERM. 
our watch-towers whence we look for a 
blessing from on high, our meeting- 
places with God whom it is our part to 

' worship, not with idle prostrations or in 
an empty superstitious reverence, for 

| places and forms, but to worship Him in 

“spirit and in truth. ‘lhe irrigations of 

Egypt do not terminate in themselves. 

|‘They have respect to the overflowing 

‘of the Nile; and without a descent from 

‘above, they would prove but an empty 
apparatus.of dry and deserted channels 
through which nothing passed to fertilise 
the now barren territory. Yet who will 
deny the good of these irrigations, or the 
perfect rationality of the Goject which the 
cultivators of the soil there have in the 
construction of them? And the same 
holds true of our ecclesiastical apparatus, 
whether it be of church-buildings, or 
church forms, or church offices—of abso- 
lute nothingness in themselves, an un- 
meaning system of empty tubes or naked 
architecture, without the blessing from 
on high, without the descent of living 
water from the upper Sanctuary. But 
who on this account should dispute the 
worth, the rational, enlightened, nay 
spiritual purpose of such a machinery as 
this—or who should undervalue either 
the outward framework or outward busi- 
ness of the house of God? Only let us 
look beyond and above all that is visible 
or external; and with as intent and wist- 
ful an eye as that wherewith the people 
of Egypt gaze upon their tutelary river 
and watch its elevations—so let us never 
cease from our attitude of expectancy and 
dependence upon Him who is the Foun- 
tain of living waters, but ever pray to the 
Father of every good and perfect gift that 
He would breathe into the framework 
set up by human hands, and which but 
for Him were a lifeless skeleton, that He 
would cause its dry bones to live. 

Let us trust therefore that we have 
now sufficiently reconciled even the most 
spiritual of our hearers to the outward 
business of the house of God, by making 
it palpable that means and machinery in 
religion, while utterly worthless as a 
substitute, may be of the uttermost worth 
and importance as a help to the life of 
God in the souls of men—deriving in 
fact their principal if not all their value 
from their subserviency to this high and 
noble end. Let me now conclude with 


XLIV.] THE OUTWARD BUSINESS 
one or two illustrations applicable to the 
present exigencies attendant on the out- 
set, and eminently conducive to a pros- 
perous settlement in these lands of the 
Free Church of Scotland. 

First then, we shall instance the pro- 
posed restoration of the ancient and use- 
tul order of Deacons in our ecclesiastical 
polity. We do not enter in detail at 
present on the nature of their official du- 
ties, though even this might not be a 
topic at all times unsuitable for the pulpit 
—seeing that the Apostle Paul (or rather 
the heavenly Agent who inspired him) 
i one of his epistles to Timothy, where 
he treats of the qualifications of applicants, | 
and lays down rules for the distribution | 
for the Church’s alms, has deemed this | 
very topic to be not unworthy of a place 
in the Bible. But we would rather dwell 
for a little on another and far higher 
benefit arising from the institution of a 


deaconship, and adverted to in Scripture 





when relating the first establishment of 
this economy in the Church. We are 
there told that the business, the proper 
and peculiar business of this order of 
men, fell at first into the hands of the 
Apostles ; but that they wanted to be quit 
of it, and on this ground, that it was not 
reason for them to leave the word of God 
and to serve tables: And so seven honest 
men had to be chosen, on whom this ser- 
vice might be devolved, for the express 
purpose that the Apostles might give 
themselves wholly to prayer and to the 
ministry of the word. Here you will 
at once perceive the direct subserviency 
of the outward to the spiritual—the use 
and the immediate effect of a merely ex- 
ternal arrangement for the doing of an 
external work, in the enlargement of 
these two greatest and best of our spiritual 
ministrations, which are prayer and the 
preaching ofthe gospel. It relieved and 
disengaged the apostles, setting them free 
for the dedication of their entire strength 
and time to that work which is strictly 
apostolical. After a result so precious, 
let no man undervalue the worth and im- 
portance of outward things. Even the 
godliest of our ministers of Christ, they 
who have gained the loftiest ascents in 
the high and hidden walk of Christian 
experience, must no longer despise them 
—for so far, in this instance, from dis- 
turbing, or in aught diminishing that 


OF THE HOUSE OF GOD. 


376 
which was going on in the higher re- 
gions of the Church, these central and 
more sacred departments of the Church’s 
business, these upper spheres of ecclesi- 
astical labour were all the more replen- 
ished and quickened thereby. 

It were in exact analogy with this 
high and scriptural example, did we plead 
for the revival of our deaconship, that the 
ministers of religion might be disbur- 
dened of all those secularities which 
ought never to have been accumulated 
upon their persons ; and that, freed from 
all anxiety about the things of this life, 
they might prosecute without distraction 
the duties of their sacred calling. and 
give themselves wholly to the business 
of winning souls But this we barely 
and briefly state, and shall not, at present, 
enlarge upon. We now bear respect to 
another class of men altogether. It is 
well known that the cessation of deacons 
in our church, by the transference of 
their duties to office-bearers of a higher 
degree, has secularised the work of the 
eldership. And, let us no longer under- 
value even the spiritual importance of 
outward things, seeing that the restora- 
tion of this ancient order, and the reas- 
sumption by them of their own proper 
and original duties, might emancipate the 

igher functionaries for their higher 
labours, so that elders shall become what 
they were in purer and better days— 
fellow-workers with their pastors in the 
cure of souls, and important helps in the 
ministry of the gospel. 

Now, look to the existing state of mat- 
ters in our church, and see whether in 
the reformation for which we plead, there 
be not a most precious, and, at the same 
time, the most seasonable of al! adapta- 
tions to the present exigency of our 
affairs. The number of ministers who 
have quitted the old establishment is four 
hundred and seventy. The number, I 
understand, of available probationers is 
about one hundred and thirty, who, after 
they have received ordination, will swell 
the account of ministers to six hundred in 
all. But the number of congregations 
already formed, or in progress towards 
this, is at least eight hundred—and this, 
too, a number never falling back, but 
subject to constant, almost daily acces- 
sions, had we only the means of an ade- 
quate supply, or a sufficiency of labourers 


380 


wherewith to meet the ever-growing de- 
mand for more full and frequent minis- 
trations. Now, we do not want precipi- 
tately to enlarge the work of any of our 
office-bearers beyond their fitness, or even 
their inclination for the work. But 
would even so much only as one-tenth 
from among the several thousands of our 
elders so far conquer their diffidence as 
to come forward and help us in our pre- 
Sent necessity—would they but venture 
on what very many of them are so well 
qualified to do, to conduct the public read- 
ings and devotions of our solemn assem- 
blies—would they but thus keep together 
for a time our embryo congregations, 
fostering and carrying them forward till 
we had so far hastened the preparation 
of our students as to provide a commen- 
surate supply of licentiates, and under 
the blessing of Him who is Lord of the 
harvest, to. send forth enough of labour- 
ers in full equipment for the plenteous 
harvest of our vast and increasing popu- 
lation—Then so urgent, so growing is 
the disposition everywhere to pass over 
from the State-fettered to the Free Church 
of Scotland, that with but the extraordi- 
nary help for a few years of some hun- 
dreds in the eldership, we might convert, 
what will otherwise be a limited and par- 
tial, into a great national movement ; and 
might thus be enabled, when in full pos- 
session of all the towns and almost all the 
parishes, to get up a pure and efficient 
gospel ministry for the great bulk of the 
families in our land. 

Yet let it not be forgotten, that, even in 
the days of the New Testament, an 
apostle, and he the most abundant of 
them all in his spiritual ministrations, did 
charge himself with the produce of those 
collections, which were made by the 
richer disciples in one place, and de- 
signed for the relief of the poorer in 
another. And, in like manner, there is 
a fund made up of weekly gatherings, 
the contributions of men who give as 
God hath prospered them, of which we 
shall say nothing more particularly now, 
than that, instead of being intended for 
the supply of the temporal wants of any, 
the far higher aim of its distribution will 
be the supply of the spiritual wants of all 
our brethren ; and so as that the blessing 
of a gospel ministry shall overspread the 
whole of Scotland, even to the most re- 


THE OUTWARD BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE OF GOD, 


a ag nee rn Naa re tr gS ap ee aa seg Sp ess Er Srna NSS ap SR a Se Sl loa a 


i 


[SERM. 


mote and destitute places of its territory. 
chequered as it is with all the varieties of 
human fortune, from lordly affluence, or 
prosperous and princely merchandise in” 
one quarter, to extreme and helpless pov- 
erty in another. Surely when the object 
is so sacred, as an equal and full pro- 
vision of the bread of life for all, the hay- 
ing to do with such a department of the 
Church’s affairs is something more than 
having to do with the Church’s seculari- 
ties. There is so much of religiousness 
in the principle on which the contribu- 
tors of this fund are led to give for its sup- 
port and extension, and so much of what 
is strictly religious in the application of 
it, that we confess our desire to see it in 
some way associated with the functions 
of our eldership; and be it in order to 
stimulate its collectors by urging upon 
them the mighty importance and solemn 
responsibilities of their office, or to 
quicken. and sustain, nay elevate the lib- 
erties of their respective districts, or final- 
ly to charge themselves with the custody 
and transmission of these sacred offerings 
—wve feel as if there were a singular 
grace and good keeping and propriety in 
having the care and cognizance of an in- 
terest so precious committed to their 
hands. We would not, therefore, wholly 
dissever these high office-bearers, and 
next to the ministers of the gospel, from 
the management of the Church’s alms, 
more especially from those alms which 
are set apart for the sustentation of the 
gospel ordinances throughout the coun 
try at large. ‘T'hey should be men of 
prayer, but not, therefore, disjoined from 
the business of charity, and in particular 
of that charity the offerings of which are 
consecrated to the support of the great 
Home Mission which labours in every 
part of our land for the good of human 
souls. ‘The prayers of faith in company 
with such offerings will, like those of 
Cornelius, come up in memorial before 
God. 

Ere I conclude, there is one general ° 
topic which I should like briefly to touch 
upon—relating to the machinery of our 
Church’s business, and for which we 
have a sanction and a model in the New 
‘Testament. It is not a lesson respecting 
the duties of any one office, but a lesson 
grounded on the undoubted fact, that in 
the primitive Church, even as moulded 





? , 


XLIV,] THE OUTWARD BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE OF GOD. 381 


and fashioned by the hands of the; other Scripture, is written for our admo- 
Apostles themselves, there did obtain a/nition on whom the latter ends of the 
great multiplicity of offices. Look atthe! world have come. And the lessons 
construction of the Church in Corinth,|seems obviously to be this—that there 
witn its goodly apparatus of offices and | ought to be a far larger and more subdi- 
office-bearers —complex as the human | vided agency for the public business of 
body, to which, with its various mem-}our Church, It is not law alone, it is 
bers it has fitly been compared ; and | not logic alone, it is not oratory alone— 
where ail moved in perfect harmony, be-| indispensable and most efficient though 
cause each confined itself to its own|each of them be within their severs] 
functions, free of all disturbing interfer-| spheres of usefulness—yet it is not these, 
ence, or of any inroad on the province | either singly or altogether, which should 
of the others. It is not alone the skilful) bear universal rule in the midst of us. 
distribution of parts that we are called; These may all exist, in marvellous power 
upon to admire; but what I would have | and perfection too, without much of what 
you especially to notice is the recognition | is familiarly termed the knowledge of 
given here of a great principle, and/| business, without much discernment of 
which is applied by inspired men to ec-| human nature, without much either of 
clesiastical, even as it is by uninspired | intuitive skill or acquired experience in 
men to all other business—even the prin-| the management of human affairs. We 
ciple and philosophy of the division of | should therefore invite a far larger num- 
labour. In the matters of ecclesiastical | ber both of ministers and elders to come 
government, all Scripture is full of it. forth on the walks of public and official 
We find it as far back as in Jethro’s ad- | employment, and these should be put into 
vice to Moses. In the polity of the Old|a far better state of subdivision and in 
Testament Church, zs exemplified in the | more skilful relationship to each other 
very chapter from which our text is|than heretofore. It isnot by a few rapid 
taken, the subdivision of employment | generalisations, or schemes of commit- 
seems to have been carried as far as pos- | tees, flung Off at a single heat by the pen 
sible. And also in the Church of the} ofa ready writer—it is not thus that eur 
New Testament, its gifted Apostles, | Church can be made either to start aright 
though largely and supernaturally en-|or to prosper on her way. What we 
dowed from on high, instead of taking | have most to dread and to deprecate is a 
all upon themselves, were glad to have | hasty universalism that would engross 
the benefit of this principle. And ac-/all. If, instead of aspiring and having 
cordingly what an array of distinct func-|to do with everything, each satisfied with 
tions and distinct functionaries is set be- | his own peculiar excellence would labour 
fore us in the twelfth chapter of St. Paul’s|to do one thing well—this were in far 
first epistle to the Corinthians. When | better accordance with the apostolic in- 
we read there of a Church as made up| junction of each man thinking soberly, 
of many helps, and diversities, and 'vari- | according as God hath dealt to every 
ous members of a great and complex} man—this were in ‘far better keeping 
body politic, we cannot but be struck with | with the limited faculties of our nature, 
the marvellous harmony which obtains | with the real mediocrity of the human 
between the harmony of grace and the | powers. 

harmony of Nature. On the one band,| Let it not be imagined that it is with 
we find that constitutionally and natural- | the ambition of the few that I now holda 
ly there is an exceeding variety of talents | reeckoning—it is with the indolence of 
and dispositions and particular aptitudes |the many. It is not against those who 
among men; and onthe other hand, cor-|do engage in the public service of the 
responding to this, we observe of the | Church that I now speak—for this were 
Spirit, that, in calling and qualifying | affixing a stigma on some of our best and 
men for their respective Church offices, | most patriotic men—but against those 
He, instead of accumulating all his gifts | who do not step forward to that service, 
upon one person, divided to every man |and whom we now call on to come over 
severally as He will. There is here a|and help us—help those who overladen 
lesson to orrselves—for this too, like all| with work are ready to sink under the 





382 THE OUTWARD BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE OF GOD. 


burden of their manifold employments. | perfect work in our souls; and not by 
It is impossible that the business of the} sternness or striving, but by the meek- 
Churchcan be well done with so stinted an | ness of wisdom and at the bidding of © 
agency as ours ; and therefore we invite | high principle, let us triumph over every 
nct In fives or in tens but in fifties at least,| provocation whether on the part of 
so many ministers and as many elders, | friends or adversaries, that all our heart- 
out of whom an adequate number, not of | burnings and all our wretched jealousies 
large but of small, and these really effi-| might vanish and give way before the 
cient and serviceable and well assorted | omnipotence of Christian charity. 
committees might be formed—that each} ‘The principle which we have now 
may have but his one committee, or at| brought to bear on the matters of public 
least but his one convenership to attend | Christianity is prolific also of applica- 
to, and that the business of our Church | tions, manifold and innumerable, to the 
might proceed in a style worthy of its; concerns of personal Christianity. What 
great cause, and worthy too of those} we have spoken of as essential to the 
great ancestors, the Fathers of the Scot-| prosperity of a church, is also essential 
tish Reformation, who, not in the depth) to the prosperity of religion in the heart 
of their piety alone, but in the profound-| and habits of an individual. I cannot, at 
ness of their secular wisdom and skill in| present, expatiate on this; but in one 
building up whether the right polity or} brief sentence let me try to urge it home 
right platform of a Church, were the} upon my hearers—that they may learr. 
most remarkable men of their day. to blend the outward with the inward, 

In conclusion, let us not forget the final | the deeds of the land with the devotions 
outgoing of the Apostle upon this subject, | and aspirations of the heart, so as to be 
when, after having assigned the distribu- | ever rising from services to supplications 
tion of the Church’s offices, according to} and from supplications to be again falling 
the respective gifts of the occupiers, and| back upon services. Are they pressing 
whom he discharged from all encroach-| onward to such a spiritual light as they 
ments on each other’s functions or pro-| have never realised, or to such heights 
vinces—then proceeds to show them a} of sanctification as they have never yel 
more excellent way, and breaks forth into | attained—let them try the combination 
a descant (one of the most eloquent passa-| which we now recommend, and see 
ges in holy writ) on the powers and pro-| whether a blessing and an enlargement 
perties of that charity which harmonises | will not come out of it. When they read 
all, which amalgamates all. Let all our| their Bibles, let them pray with all ear- 
things be done in that spirit of love} nestness for the Spirit—when they pray 
which is there inculcated so beautifully | for the Spirit, let them read with all ear- 
—love to each other—love to those who | nestness their Bibles. Let their perform- 
are engaged with ourselves in this great | ances and their petitions go hand in hand 
battle for the spiritual liberties of Scotland | —looking with as much dependence for 
—-above all love to the souls of our peo-| grace and help from above as if God did 
ple—nay love to our enemies in this sore | all—labouring with as great diligence 
struggle, who now watch for our halting, | among the duties of life below as if man 
and have confidently predicted that we| did all. O! may such be the spirit of 
shall at length fall to pieces by falling | our assembly, and of all its members, ap- 
out among ourselves. Let it be our de-| proving themselves as men of industry 
termination and our care to disappoint | and wisdom, and yet as men of faith and 
these calculations. Let patience have its | of deepest piety. 








—— sslhrmseins 


- 


POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. 


PREFACE. 


Dr. CHALMERS was licensed as a preacher of the gospel by the Presbytery of St, 
Andrews on the 31st of July, 1799. In December, 1801, he became assistant to the 
Rey. Mr. Elliot, minister of Cavers, a parish lying along the banks of the Teviot, a few 
miles from Hawick. As Mr. Elliot was laid aside by his infirmities, the pulpit duties 
devolved wholly upon his assistant, after a regular discharge of which for a period of 
about nine months, Dr. Chalmers left Cavers in September, 1802. He was ordained as 
minister of the parish of Kilmany, in Fifeshire, on the 12th of May, 1803; and twelve of 
the most important and most fruitful years of his life were spent in this peaceful retreat. 
In the autumn of 1815, he was removed to Glasgow, in which city eight years of inces- 
sant but triumphant toil were devoted to all the different kinds of ministerial labour. In 
November, 1823, he finally resigned the pulpit for the professor’s chair. He was twenty- 
three years of age at the date of his ordination, and forty-three when he gave up his 
charge—his ministry as an ordained clergyman covering thus the space of twenty years. 

From the large mass of his pulpit preparations Dr. Chalmers had already selected those 
discourses which seemed to him the worthiest of being published—the likeliest by their 
publication to do good. Out of the remainder it might have been perilous—it would per- 
haps have been improper—to have selected so many as thirty-three new sermons, and to 
have presented them as of equal or kindred merit with those already issued through the 
press It occurred to me, however, in reading over this class of his manuscripts, that 
without ‘njury done to his usefulness or reputation as a preacher, a two-fold—a literary 
as well as a religious—object might be attained by the publication of a series of them 
arranged in chronological order. 

It was as a preacher that Dr. Chalmers first reached celebrity. His earlier authorship 
had failed to make any deep impression on the public mind. His Treatise on the “ Evi- 


_ dences of Christianity” had begun to attract attention, and would finally have secured to 


him a high place among the defenders of the Christian faith; .but it was the publication 
of his “ Astronomical Discourses” which at once raised him to a pinnacle of higher emi- 
nence, gave to him a larger audience, and won for him a larger influence than it had been 
the lot of any Scottish minister from the days of the Reformation to enjoy. In these 
discourses, whose eloquence filled all eyes with its dazzling splendour, and opened all 
lips to praise, an idiomatic peculiarity of phraseology was at once observable. Under 
this new employer of it, our language took new forms, and showed itself capable of ren- 
dering new services; and while critics said of this new way of wielding words that it was 
neither strictly accurate nor classically elegant, it was universally felt and confessed that 
by an easy use and mastery of words and phrases which in other hands had been unman- 
ageable, Dr. Chalmers possessed a rare, an unequaled power of setting forth his ideas in 
a multitude of changing phases, varying in a thousand ways the form of their presenta- 
tion, not only without any injury to, but with positive and large enhancement of effect. 
There was an interminable but unwearying variety—a voluminous amplitude which yet 
never passed into the turgid—the life-blood of a quick intelligence or a most fervid emo- 
tion “circulating vitality to the last extremities of expression—to the minutest ramifica- 
tions of phrase.” 

But this style of writing, how came it to be adopted and employed? Had it an infancy, 
a growth? And if so, what was its earliest, its infant condition—and how rose it to such 
a stately maturity? This volume is presented as a help to him who would prosecute 
such inquiries. It furnishes him with the means of tracing up very nearly to its fountain- 
head, that full flowing river whose many-waved bosom has borne so many thousands so 
triumphantly along. He does not indeed here see that stream rolling at its largest breadth 
and with its fullest volume—for that it is to the Astronomical, or some other of the already 
published discourses, that he must look. Nor does he see it, as within narrower banks 
but with waters purer, deeper, stiller—with more of heaven’s own pure light upon them, 
it ran on when near its close—for that it is to the Hore Sabbatice that he must look— 
but we raise him here to a stand-point whence he can see it through a longer period of 
its course, and trace it through more of its variations, than previously lay open to his eye. 

It is mainly, however, with a hope that, in the form given to it, this volume may serve 


. asacontribution te the religious biography of Dr. Chalmers, that it is put into the reader’s 


384 PREFACE TO POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. 


hands. Before him here, and within comparatively narrow compass, he has a series of 
compositions between the date of the first and the last of which an interval of very nearly 
half a century occurs. Had the topics treated of in these writings belonged even to an 
branch of a purely speculative philosophy, it would have interested us to follow, throug 
so long a line of progress, the advancing footsteps of an intellect gifted with such superior 
power, and urged on by so simple and so strong a Jove of truth; and that interest would 
have been quickened into a heightened intensity had we been informed beforehand that, 
at a certain stage in his progress, a singular revolution had taken pface in the opinions 
and sentiments of the inquirer. But the topics dwelt upon throughout this volume— 
God, and the revelations He has made of Himself to man, man and his awful relationships 
with God and eternity—are no matters of mere barren speculation. According to the © 
manner in which they are approached and dealt with by each of us they affect, closely 
and influentially, our state and character here, our prospects for eternity. It was in this 
light they were looked upon by the departed author of these writings. It is generally 
known that some years after his settlement at Kilmany, a revolution happened which 
altered the whole spirit, course, and object of his life and ministry. He himself believed, 
that upon the change which then took place his own salvation hinged. He believed that 
had that change not been realized, he should have stood at last hopelessly condemned at 
that tribunal before which he has now appeared. Although before that change his faith 
in the divine origin of Christianity was intelligent and entire—though all the doctrines 
which our standards teach were fully and unequivocally admitted by him—though as to 
all the external proprieties of professional conduct, and many of the most attractive vir- 
tues of social life, he might have challenged a comparison with the great majority of the 
men among whom he lived,—yet was it his conviction that the faith which bringeth salva- 
tion had not till then been formed—the true and only ground of a sinner’s acceptance 
with God had not been occupied and rested on—the true and only preparation for the 
services and joys of a holy and blissfui immortality had not commenced. 

The history of a revolution upon which, according to the estimate of him who passed 
through it, his personal salvation hung, must necessarily have an exceeding interest to 
all who agree in the conclusions to which that revolution conducted him. But should it 
not also awaken the curiosity of those who, in the absence of such an agreement, have yet 
a strong and general confidence in the entire sincerity and large capabilities of discern- 
ment of Dr. Chalmers? They not only do not receive, but they have a strong inward 
repugnance to those peculiar doctrines, and those peculiar ways—by word and deed—of 
illustrating arid enforcing them, which prevail with a certain class of religionists, whom 
they are in the habit of regarding generally with a sentiment bordering on contemptuous 
disgust. They think, that for that sentiment they have good and valid warrant. They 
believe of those whom they thus pity or despise, that they are very narrow-minded—that 
they neither see themselves as they are seen by others, nor look with a broad and charita- 
ble intelligence along the wide waving lines of human belief. It might serve to shake such 
out of that confidence wherein they have intrenched themselves, could they be made to see 
it of another—and that other such a one as they admit Dr. Chalmers to have been—that 
the very thoughts which they now are thinking, he too once thought—and that all that 
searching discernment which they credit themselves with, he too once exercised upon the 
disciples of evangelism—and that the full force of all that recoil and antipathy which they 
are feeling, he too once felt. I have not inserted in this volume those earlier sermons in 
which fullest and most vehement utterance is given to the strong dislike which he at that 
time cherished to the doctrines of free grace, and to the style of character and conduet 
exhibited by many of the most zealous of their advocates. Enough, however, is pre- 
sented, to enable the intelligent reader to look upon the earlier period of his ministry, 
both in its positive and negative aspects, in what was present and required to be removed 
—in what was absent and required to be imparted—in the prejudices which behooved to 
be overborne, as well as in the faith which behooved to be implanted. The contrast 
between the first seven and the succeeding sermons in this volume, will help such a 
reader to trace in outline the distinctive characteristics of the former and latter epochs 
of his pulpit-history; and when the full materials for filling up that outline shall have 
been furnished, still more clearly will he then discern how that earlier experience of Dr. 
Chalmers qualified him for dealing so wisely, so faithfully and so tenderly as he ever did 
with those in whom he saw what he once himself had been—and helped to prepare him 
for becoming what, when all his theological writings shall have been given to the world, 
I can scarcely doubt that he will be generally acknowledged to have been—the ablest 
and most judicious, as well as the most eloquent expounder, within the whole range of 
British authorship, of the two great cardinal doctrines of our faith—the doctrine of the 
radical and entire depravity of our nature, and the doctrine of the sinner’s free gratuitous 
justification before God through faith in the imputed righteousness of Crrist. 


SERMON 1. 


Divine Summary of Human Duty.* 


“He hata showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but 
to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”—Micanu vi. 8. 


Tus passage, if taken in connection 
with the context, would naturally di- 
rect our thoughts to the evils of hypoc- 
risy and superstition. It would lead us 
to infer that the mind alone is the seat 
of virtue; that in our estimation of re- 
ligion we are not to have respect to the 
works of the hand, but only to the moral 
disposition of the heart. Instead, how- 
ever, of adverting more particularly to 
the occasion of the text, I propose to 
consider it independently, and of itself; 
and shall first endeavor to illustrate the 
particular duties enjoined in the text, 
aad shall then consider it in its connec- 
tion with the religion of Jesus. 

The Lord requireth of thee to do just- 
‘ly—to love mercy. The promotion of 
happiness is the great end of all social 
duty. Wherefore is it that justice ap- 
proves itse:t to our feennys of virtue ? 
Because without its observance. the 
peace, the happiness, the very existence 
of society would be endangered. Mercy, 
also,is the object of moral approbation ; 
_ because by the relief of indigence, by 
the consolation of misery, it advances 
and promotes the happimess of men. 
Both are equally incumbent, because 
beth conduce to the same end. In the 


* The manuscript of the following sermoi bears the 
_ 4ate of January 18, 1798, two months before Dr, Chal- 
‘- mer’s eighteenth birthday, and a year and a half before 
he was licensed by the Presbytery as a preacher of the 
gospel. It must have been written as a Divinity Hall 
slass exercise during the last session of his regular at- 
tendance at the University of St, Andrews. Its con- 
‘sluding paragraphs lay bare to us those fatal misappre- 
hensions of the great doctrine of justification by faith 
only, which were cherished by him during the first ten 
years of his ministry—against which he was afterwards 
all the better fitted to guard others becanse of his havin 
been sc long misled by them himself, / 


49 





eye of civil polity doing justly may be 
all that is in duty required, but in the 
eye of eternal reason and virtue, loving 
mercy is no less indispensable. It is 
the end which these virtues have a ten- 
dency to promote that confers upon them 
their moral obligation. This end is one 
and invariable; the means which lead 
to its attainment are diversified with the 
circumstances of the case. Justice and 
mercy include in them all the various 
manners of acting by which we can 
contribute to the happiness of mankind. 
Hence they resolve themselves into that 
great duty which consists in devoting 
our time and our labor to the welfare 
of others. Benevolence or universal 
charity is the source from which the 
observance of these duties proceeds. It 
is this principle of love which guides 
through the path of duty, and is the 
fountain of all our social virtues. It 
equally calls upon us to satisfy th; de- 
mands of justice, and to visit the abodes 
of wretchedness ; to discharge with fidel- 
ity the trust reposed in us, and to ex- 
ercise all our tender affections. Let us 
cultivate this spirit of benevolence and 
love, and we fulfill the duties recom- 
mended in the text; for all the com- 
mandments are briefly comprehended 
in this saying—Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself. 

Let us now proceed to the last duty 
which the text recommends—Thou shalt 
walk humbly with thy God. Walking 
humbly with God more immediately in- 
valves in it an entire acquiescence in 
His authority—an unbounded resigna- 
tion to His will, It is opposed to that 


386 DIVINE SUMMARY 
arrogance of mind which would lead us 
to cavil and repine at the dispensations 
of His providence. But it also includes 
in it the whole of piety; to it may be 
referred all those affections of mind 
which should result from the relations 
we stand in to our Creator. It is with 
God that we are required to walk hum- 
bly; and if so, we must be open to 
every sentiment which the contempla- 
tion of His perfections is calculated to 
inspire—to the awe of His power, to 
confidence in His wisdom, and to the 
love of His goodness. The man of hu- 
mility strives to offer an acceptable 
service to the Author of his being. 
Does God speak? he listens to his 
words with an awful reverence; he re- 
poses an unlimited trust in His veracity. 
Does God declare his will? with un- 
hounded faith he receives His sovereign 
inandates and submits to their influence. 
A sacred reverence for the authority of 
(sod keeps him in the path of His divine 
commandments, and leads him to watch 
over his conduct with trembling anxiety. 
But humility towards God does not con- 
sist entirely in the dread of His power, 
and it by no means consists in that 
slavish terror which enfeebles the en- 
ergy of the mind, and destroys the vi- 
tals of our happiness. The Deity hath 
deigned to reveal Himself to us under 
the endearing images of our father and 
friend. He hath softened the sense of 
His greatness by giving us a view of 
his beneficence and love. We ought 
therefore to cherish sentiments of grati- 
tude and affection, and the contempla- 
tion of the divine goodness should in- 
spire our hearts with confidence and 
joy. Think not, then, that piety casts 
a gloom over the face of nature. Think 
mot that sullen and dejected it retires 
from the world to dwell on nothing but 
subjects of melancholy. Think not that 
the sigh of sadness or the tears of pen- 
itential sorrow are its whole employ- 
ments. True, the ravages of sin, the 
imperfections.of finite nature, may cause 
it to hide its face for a time in all the 
bitterness of grief. But soon will the 
light of the divine countenance be re- 
stored, and that veice ef heavenly con- 
solation be heard which speaketh peace 
to the soul. Then piety appears ar- 
xayed in aj] its beauty.end lustre. It 


OF HUMAN DUTY. [SERM 
harmonizes with every generous feeling 
of our nature, and ennobles the enjoy- 
ments of life. It confers new dignity 
on man; and the sense of this dignity af- 
fords a new theme of gratitude and love. 
Now may we be convinced of the 
propriety of applying the epithet “good” 
to humility or piety towards God. Alas, 
it is only in the sense of His wise prov-— 
idence that we can find any rational 
support to the soul amidst the present 
scenes of obscurity and confusion! Man 
mourns‘over his afflictions; cares and 
anxieties distract his mind. Following 
after peace, earnest in the pursuit of 
happiness, the events of every day con- 
vince him of the fallacy of his hopes— 
every hour brings on new topics of lam- 
entation and compiaint. What then 
shall he do? Shall he sit down undei 
the despondency of continual apprehen- 
sion, destitute of all hope in futurity, 
and incapable of the sublime exertions 
of virtue? In sullen despair shall he 
drag out his miserable existence with- 
out a generous sentiment to elevate his 
mind, and without a ray of consolation 
to cheer the gloom of life? No; let the 
infinite wisdom and unbounded good- 
ness of God be impressed on his mind; 
let him contemplate those provisions 
which the Author of nature hath made 
for the encouragement and comfort of 
His creatures; and let him fit himself 
by the exercises of humility and piety, 
for the enjoyment of the blessings which 
these provisions insure ;—then will be 
dispelled those clouds of sorrow and 
darkness which overhung his mind; 
the peace of his soul will be completely 
restored. Resting with an humble as- 
surance on the favor of his God, he 
looks forward with joy to that felicity 
which His goodness gives him reason 
to expect. Amidst the storms and the 
tempests of life he extends his prospects 
to the regions of everlasting peace. Let 
us therefore recognize the goodness of 
genuine humility. It is good in the 
moral sense, because in the eye of rea- 
son and of virtue it naturally results 
from that relation which subsists be- 
tween man and his Maker; and it is 
good also in the natural sense, because 
it alleviates the evils of this present life, 
and prepares us for the enjoyment o 
eternal felicity. : 


t) 


In the same manner we must ac- 
knowledge the goodness of benevolence. 
The exercises of pure and perfect benev- 
olence would convert this vale of tears 
into a paradise of bliss. Under its be- 
nign influence, want and its attendant 
2vils would be banished from the earth ; 
men would feel little of the evils, and 
would enjoy in perfection the blessings 
of life. Why has the populous city be- 
come an habitation for the beasts of the 
desert? Wherefore is that a dreary 
wilderness which was formerly crowned 
with the blessings of plenty—where in- 
nocence and peace took up their abode, 
and nothing was heard but the voice of 
joy? We are not to say that Nature 
was unkind, or that she delights in the 
misery of her children. We have sel- 
dom to ascribe it to the ravave of the ele- 
ments, or to any of those evils which 
are essential to our state, but: to the 
wickedness and depravity of the human 
heart—to the dire effusions of passion— 
to the mad ambition of wealth and of 
power. ‘These are the principal sources 
of human wretchedness; and these it is 
the direct tendency of benevolence to 
suppress. Under its happy reign all 
would enjoy the exquisite pleasures of 
loving and of being beloved—pleasures 
which ‘are congenial to the heart and 
make up the chief part of our happiness. 
Though the powers of nature should 
conspire to rob us of our peace, yet the 
voice of love would invite us to gladness. 
Though the heavens should withhold 
their rain, and the earth forbear.to yield 
its increase ; or, though the fair face of 
nature should be overcast in the gloom 
of night, and the blast of the storm 
should threaten to overwhelm us; yet 
supported by the kind endearments of 
friendship, we may continue unruffled 
and serene, and our minds be open to 
the most feeling enjoyments. On the 
other hand, let everything without unite 
to gratify our desires and increase our 
enjoyments ; let the labor of the year be 
crowned with success; let the seasons 
join in concert for our accommodation 
and ease; let the sun dispense in due 
proportion his cheering influences; let 
the fury of the tempest be allayed, and 
all around us be clothed in mildness 
and beauty; unless the heart of man 
accords with the beneficence of nature 


DIVINE SUMMARY OF HUMAN DUTY. 


387 


—unless his mind is open to the warm 
impressions of sympathy and love— 
misery will still be our lot; the tale of 
wo will still be heard in our streets; 
and this world will continue the abode 
of wretchedness. The sufferings of Job 
were aggravated in.the extreme. Yet 
the loss of his wealth, the ravages of 
disease, the death of his children, the 
dissolution of the most endearing con- 
nections in nature, were all unable to 
shake the patient fortitude of his mind. 
Still could he raise to heaven the voice 
of gratitude and resignation: The Lord 
giveth, the Lord taketh away; blessed 
be His name. But when his compan- 
ions and friends, instead of allaying the 
anguish of his grief, instead of taking 
upon them the part of a comforter, be- 
gan to insult him with their bitter ae- 
cusations, then the vigor of his mind 
was unequal to the arduous contest, and 
his soul, no longer able to support itself, 
was subjected to the mingled emotions 
of indignation and grief Nature is kind 
enough, if we were only kind to one an- 
other. But often, alas! do the dark de- 
sions of malice work in our breasts; 
often do the silly emotions of pride and 
of envy obstruct the enjoyments of so- 
cial intercourse. O that the principle 
of benevolence within us were powerful] 
enough to eradicate these passions from 
our hearts. O that we were sacrificing 
our absurd notions of importance and 
dignity, our views of interest and ambi- 
tion, to that great object—the good of 
others. O that the suffermgs of our 
fellow-men were calling forth the tears 
of sympathy, and rousing to exertions 
of beneficence and love; then the bur- 
dens of life would bear light upon us, 
and our days would pass in the pure 
enjoyment of innocence and virtue. 

Let us now proceed to consider the 
religion of Jesus in its connection with 
the spirit of the text. 

Justice, mercy, and piety, are all that 
are or can be required of us by God. 
Hence if we are bound to acquiesce 
in the doctrines and to obey the pre- 
cepts of the gospel, this acquiescence 
and this obedience must be the con- 
sequence of one or other of those du- 
ties which are enjoined in the text. 
Faith in the religion of Jesus must be 
the necessary effect of walking humbly 


388 DIVINE SUMMARY 
with God, if the testimony of the apos- 
tle and evangelists be entitled to belief. 
This will appear from considering the 
nature of that evidence by which Chris- 
tianity is supported. Those arguments 
for its truth which are derived from our 
experience of the usual conduct and be- 
havior of men have never been refuted. 
.And on the validity of these arguments, 
we are capable of forming a right, un- 
erring judgment; since the conduct of 
men in all states and circumstances is 
thie subject of daily observation. But 
whence are the objections of our oppo- 
nents derived? They are derived from 
some supposed defect in the scheme or 
dispensation of Christianity ; from some- 
thing which they imagine to be incon- 
sistent with the nature of God, or un- 
worthy of His perfections. But can this 
invalidate the force of that evidence 
which we know how to measure and 
ascertain? When reasoning on the 
conduct of men, we can form our con- 
clusions with certainty and precision ; 
-but when reasoning on the conduct of 
(god, we are involved in the clouds of 
ignorance and error. We are unable 
to scan the ways of Jehovah, to trace 
the operations of unerring wisdom. We 
cannot determine on the rectitude of the 
divine dispensations, since we know 
them not in all their telations and all 
their extent. It is not for us, the frail 
insects of a day, who are yet in the 
childhood of existence, who scarce have 
had time to look about us in the im- 
mense theatre of being; it is not for us 
to oppose the feeble powers of our rea- 
son to the wonders of Omnipotence. 
When we know the’mechanism of the 
universe, When we are acquainted with 
the laws by which its vast operations 
are conducted, when we can trace the 
connections which run through the va- 
rious systems of being—then, and then 
only, are we entitled to decide on the 
propriety of the means which the Au- 
thor of nature may adopt for the com- 
pletion of His designs. Seeing then 
our ignorance in the ways of God, we 
must be cautious of making some sup- 
posed inconsistency with His attributes 
a ground of rejecting what is proposed 
as the revelation of His will. No opin- 
ion that we may form of His conduct 
ean ever be the criterion of its truth or 


OF HUMAN DUTY. [SERM. 
falsehood. But the case is different 
with regard to the conduct of men; 
here we can reason with all the confi- 
dence of truth. Shall therefore a mere 
assumption on the methods of the di- 
vine administration counterbalance those 
arguments on which alone we are capa- 
ble of deciding with assurance? I leave 
it to the determination of sound philos- | 
ophy. Thus Christianity approves itself 
to our understandings as being divinely 
inspired, and we fail in our duty to God 
if we believe not its doctrines nor sub- 
mit to its precepts. 

When inquiring into the divine will 
we would observe that the doctrines of 
revelation are laid before us with dif- 
ferent degrees of light and clearness. 
Hence we would receive them with the 
hesitation of partial knowledge, or with 
the confidence of truth. What is clearly 
revealed we would treasure up in our 
minds as of the most essential import- 
ance. What is hid in obscurity or is 
remote from our apprehensions we would 
regard with an awful revence, but would 
forbear to reason on with the assurance 
of dogmatism. But, alas! this natural 
order has been inverted—and to this we 
are In a great measure to ascribe the 
corruptions of Christianity. Instead of 
employing their zeal in maintaining 
that faith and that practice which are 
clearly laid down in Seripture, and 
which it insists upon as our duty to 
Grod and as essential to our happiness, 
many have directed their chief atten- 
tion to those subjects on which it is un- 
decided and obscure. They have at- 
tached the highest degree of importance 
to those doctrines which transcend the 
limits of our faculties, and to these they 
have sacrificed all that can inform the 
understanding or improve the heart. 
Thus religion is made to consist in 
dark speculations and unprofitable in- 
quiries. The beautiful simplicity of 
the gospel is defaced; and a dark veil 
of mysticism intercepts from our view 
the light of divine truth. The effects 
of heavenly instruction are lost-on the 
world, since Christianity thus perverted 
from its original excellence is unsuited 
to the natures and capacities of reason- 
able beings. The corrupters of evangel- 
ical purity, in accordance with their 
zeal for the particular doctrines they 


Ld 


have espoused, maintain the absolute 
necessity of believing in them. Thus 
in their systems of theological truth, 
they have had the audacity to heap ar- 
ticle on article, and to crown all with 
this thundering assertion—that eternal 
misery awaits those who should dare to 
dissent. What a lamentable deviation 
from the spirit of the text! Here the 


DIVINE SUMMARY 


rewards of heaven are attached to the | 


exercise of our virtuous affections. And 
what is the line of conduct which these 
would lead us to adopt? They lead us 
to repose an unlimited confidence in the 
veracity of God, to examine the revela- 
tion of His will with humility and can- 
dour, and to keep our minds open to those 
impressions which the perusal of its 
contents are fitted to produce. If, there- 
fore, the tenets of these religionists are 
contained in the Scriptures of truth, it 
will be a dictate of piety that we acqui- 
esce in them, since it would be'an in- 
sult on the Divine Being to withhold 
our assent. But the faith of Christian- 
ity is praiseworthy and meritorious only 
because it is derived from the influence 
of virtuous sentiments on the mind. 
Hence the labors of those are grossly 
misapplied who inculcate the belief of 
certain religious truths as the method 
of obtaining the favour of heaven. Let 
us rather endeavour to inspire men with 
virtuous affections; let us impress upon 
their hearts the sentiments of humility 
and piety; and let us refer the revela- 
tions of the divine will to their own ex- 
amination. They will there recognize 
the doctrines which it is incumbent on 
them to believe, and they will discern 
the sources of this incumbency. Let 
us tremble to think that anything but 
virtue can recommend us to the Al- 
mighty. True, we wander in the paths 
_of vanity and darkness, and Christ is 
pointed out to us as our only refuge 
against the terrors of guilt; but the ac- 
knowledgment of our Saviour, that faith 
in Him, which is essential to our hap- 
piness, is brought about by the impulse 
of moral sentiment, and unless it were 
so we cannot see how it could insure to 
us the favour of heaven. 

In nothing has the genius of mysti- 
cism more displayed itself than in the 
delineations of that faith which is a re- 
_ quisite to salvation. We recognize the 


OF HUMAN DUTY. 389 
faith of Christianity as that which is 
derived from the force of reason, and 
the energy of virtuous sentiment. But 
the misguided votaries of superstition 
and fanaticism have involved this sub- 
ject in darkness. They talk of faith, 
and their notions of this faith are con- 
tradictory and absurd; a faith which 
consists not in the assent of the under- 
standing, but in some strange undefin- 
able affection of the mind—a faith not 
derived from the calm exercises of the 
| inquiring faculty, or from the sober sug- 
gestions of humility and piety; but a 
faith which precedes all examination, 
and is said to be the primary source of 
all that is good and excellent in the hu- 
man character. I ask the man of com- 
mon sense, if he can form to himself 
any idea of this faith—the favourite topic 


‘of declamation with these famed relig- 


ionists. But they love to soar aloft; 
their ears are soothed, their imagina- 
tions are dazzled with those high-sound- 
ing words, those notable phrases which 
they think can explain all the mysteries ~ 
of theological science. We consider the 
faith of Christianity to be the humble 
assurance of an honest mind which 
grounds its confidence on the conscious- 
ness of its own sincerity, on the view 
of the divine goodness, and on the con- 





templation of those provisions which the 
Author of nature hath made for the en- 
couragement of erring mortals. But 
the perverters of the truth as it is In 
Jesus have determined that to be the 
saving faith which none but the pre- 
sumptuous can entertain; not that faith 
which worketh by love, which purifieth 
the heart, and which overcometh the 
world, but that faith which, according 
with the pride of their minds, elevates 
them in their own esteem as the pecu- 
liar favourites of heaven. This faith 
(horrible to relate) they carry about 
with them as an amulet against the re- 
proaches of a guilty conscience, and 
thus do they stifle the feelings of na- 
ture, and check the sentiments of vir- 
tue. Sanctioned by this faith they may 
oppress the poor, the fatherless, and the 
widow—they may betray the interests 
of an unsuspecting friend, while they 
lay claim to the friendship of heaven. 
Sanctioned by this faith they may in- 
dulge in every excess of sensual volup- 


390 
tuousness, while they have confidence 
in their hearts towards God, who is of 
purer eyes than’ to behold iniquity. 
Sanctioned by this faith they may med- 
itate on schemes of robbgry and mur- 
der. while they exclaim with exultation 
—Lo, the Spirit of Jesus is in us—O 
my soul come not thou into their secret ; 
unto their assembly mine honour be not 
thou united. Instruments of cruelty 
are in their habitations; they bathe 
their hands in the blood of innocence ; 
they lurk in the dark haunts of villainy ; 
and, good God! they sit secure amidst 
such enormities, and rejoice in their pre- 
sumption as the mark of intimacy with 
the Spirit, and of growth in grace. 

Q Christianity whither hast thou fled? 
where hast thou taken up thine abode ? 
We sought for thy instructions, but coun- 
sels were darkened by words without 
knowledge. We sought for thy beau- 
ties, and the picture of horrid deformity 
was exhibited to our view. We sought 
for thy consolations, and our souls were 
appalled with the sounds of horror and 
despair. Surely thou art despoiled of 
thy graces and thy ornaments. Surely 
thou hast resigned the lovely honours 
of thy head. We took thee for the mes- 
senger of glad tidings, for the publisher 
of love, peace, and joy; but we have 
seen thee clothed with terror. and strik- 
ing with dismay thy slavish worship- 
pers. We took thee for the support and 


THE GUILT OF CALUMNY. 





[SERM. 


encouragement of virtue, but, alas! we 
have seen all that accords with the feel- 
ings of our minds despised and over- 
looked, and we have seen thy blessings 
and thy réwards attached to the pride 
of censorious dogmatism, to the confi- 
dence of presumption, and to the un- 
meaning effusions of false zeal. The 
soul formed to sentiments of generosity 
sickens at the prospect, and must either ~ 
rise superior to the prejudices of the 
times, or (dreadful alternative) shelter 
itself in infidel repose. 

Let us therefore pray the Father of 
Spirits that He would dispel those clouds 
of ignorance and error which overwhelm 
the nations; that He would enable them 
to see the religion of Jesus in its native 
purity ; that He would enable them to 
see it through that vail of mysticism 
with which the pernicious superstition 
of men hath invested it; that He would 
enable them to see it as the offspring of 
reason and virtue. Then they will 
leave their dark and intricate specula- 
tions. They will learn to relish the 
simplicity of the gospel—that affecting 
strain of sentiment which pervades it 
—that warm spirit of benevolence which 
it breathes—those sublime precepts of 
morality which it inculeates. They 
will learn to admire and to imitate the 
rational and elevated piety, the ardent 
charity, the pure and exalted virtue of 
Jesus and his apostles. 


SERMON IL. 


The Guilt of Calumny.* 


* Speak not evil one of another, brethren. 


He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his 


brother, speaketh evil of the law. and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art 
not a doer of the law, but a judge.”—James iv. 11. 


Ir is not calumny to speak evil of 
another when the evidence of his guilt 
is undeniable, and when it is necessary 
to defend the young against the dan- 





* No date is attached either to this sermon or to that 
which immediately succeeds it. The state however of 
the manuscripts, and the style of the penmanship (which 
from the marked changes it undergoes at different suc- 
cessive stages is almost of itself a sufficient guide), as 
well as certain internal evidences, carry with them the 
conviction that these two sermons were among the very 
earliest of Dr. Chalmers’ pulpit preparations. 





gers of hisexample. It is not calumny 
to deal out to vice its infamy and its 
correction—to hold it up to the terror 
and the execration of the neighbourhood 
—to lay open the secret recesses of 
hypocrisy—or to unmask the dissimu- 
lations of injustice. If this is to be 
denounced as calumny. vice will reign 
triumphant in the world. public opinion 
will lose its energy, deceit and profli- 


Biles 


gacy will have nothing to fear from the 
resentment of indignation; they will 
lift an unabashed countenance in the 
face of day, and lord it. in insolent se- 
curity. Some are for carrying the vic- 
tory of candour to a disgusting and an 
affected extremity. I hate that candour 
that would control the risings of a gen- 
erous indignation, where guilt is open 
and unquestionable ; that candour which 
can ape Christian charity, while it looks 
with patience on the oppressions or the 
triumphs of injustice; that candour 
which can maintain a regulated com- 
posure of aspect, though it sees virtue 
in disgrace, and vice enthroned in the 
honours of preferment; that well-bred 
accommodation which can smile equally 
on all, and sit in contentment amid the 
general decay of worth and principle. 
Such a man as this passes for a lover 
of peace, an excellent member of soci- 
ety, who never thinks of disturbing our 
repose by his furious and turbulent in- 
vectives—who never obtrudes his own 
offensive peculiarities of temper or of 
opinion—who never acts the firebrand 
of mischief, but suffers us to proceed in 
quietness. But to complete the picture, 
this good-natured accommodating man 
has sometimes an interest to mind, 
which requires him on the one hand to 
yield to the reigning corruptions, and 
on the other to depress the credit and 
pretentions of an obnoxious individual. 
Let us observe the plan which this 
enemy to evil-speaking and to every- 
thing that is violent and intemper- 
ate, let us observe the plan he pursues 
to time it to his purposes. This pat- 
tern of Christian temper will find it 
necessary to throw out his insinuations, 
but then he will do it with decency ; he 
will betray no rash or unguarded viol- 
ence; he will trample on no established 
ceremonial; he will speak kindness and 
smile complacency on the victim of his 
resentment; he will honour him with 
the attentions of politeness, and share 
with him the hour of mirth and convi- 
viality. 
may rankle in his bosom—but then he 
does not offend by the ostentation of 
them. Some secret mischief may be 
brooding in his intentions, but then he 
does not alarm by his menaces. What- 
ever is calculated to agitate or terrify, he 


THE GUILT OF CALUMNY. 


Some feelings of malignity- 


391 


‘kindly withdraws from his observation, 


and delights him by his manners and 
civility, though he find it convenient at 
times to make free with his character 
—propagate in secret the tale of infamy 
—set all his low rabble of emissaries on 
the work of misrepresentation — and 
awaken the contempt or hostility of a 
deluded public. Yet such is the false 
esteem of calumny, which pervades 
these scenes of interest and competition 
—where the artifices of mere policy 
have perverted every sentiment of jus- 
tice, and crushed every genuine and 
unaffected feeling of the heart—where 
the indignation of a mind at glaring 
and acknowledged guilt, is ascribed to 
the working of a foul-mouthed malig- 
nity—while not a man appears to lift 
the voice of remonstrance against the 
character of him who, under the sem- 
blances of a smooth exterior, will spread 
his deceitful insinuations and work the 
ruin and disgrace of the upright. 

The guilt of calumny les in the 
three following circumstances: First, 
in the imperfection of that evidence 
upon which the calumny is founded. 
Second, in the injury it does to the un- 
happy victim. Third, in its prejudicial 
effects upon the general interests of vir- 
tue. 

F rst, then, as to the imperfection of the 
evidence. There are some actions which 
carry villainy on the very face of them, 
and which can meet with no quarter even 
from the meekness of charity—such as 
the foulness of a murder, the infamy 
of artful and deliberate seduction, the 
desertion of a parent who is left by the 
ingratitude of his children to the soli- 
tude and helplessness of age, the brazen 
effrontery of falsehood, which can re- 
joice in the success of its artifices, and 
laugh at the unsuspecting simplicity of 
the virtuous. There are other actions 
where the merit is ambiguous or un- 
certain, and this is the favourite field for 
the exercise of calumny. When aman 
relieves a beggar in the street, it may 
be the impulse of generous emotion, but 
calumny will tell you it is the vanity 
of ostentation. Whena man stops short 
in the career of prosperity, and resigns 
himself to the mercy of his creditors, it 
may be the cruelty of misfortune, but 
calumny will tell you of his concealed 


392 


treasure, of his fictitious entries, of his 
sly and artful evasions. When a man 
gives himself to mirth and to company, 
it may be the innocent act of a con- 
vivial and benevolent heart, but ca- 
lumny will tell you of his midnight 
excess, of his habitual licentiousness, 
of his extravagant dissipation. When 
we hear in the house the music of family 
devotion, it may be in the spirit of old 
and respectable piety, but calumny will 
tell you of the rigour of puritanical 
solemnity, or the disgusting mask of 
the hypocrite. When a man is pros- 
ecuting the claims of justice, it may be 
with all the purity of upright and hon- 
ourable intentions, but calumny will 
tell you that it is the gripe of avarice or 
the insolence of oppression. Where 
candour would hesitate, calumny as- 
sumes the tone of authority. Where 
candour would demand proof and in- 
vestigation, calumny gives her confident 
decisions. Where candour is for wait- 
ing in silence and suspending her judg- 
ments, calumny draws her precipitate 
inference, and indulges in all the tem- 
erity of invective. Where candour is 
for checking the progress of a malicious 
report as unwarranted by evidence, 
calumny renews all her efforts and 
gives fresh activity to the circulation. 
Where the merit of an action is dis- 
guised by the uncertainty of its evi- 
dence, or the ambiguity of its complex- 
ion, candour always gives her decision 
on the side of innocence and of mercy, 
but it is the delight of calumny to give 
it a dark, malignant colouring, and to 
send it round to infamy and reprobation. 
You must all have observed the succes- 
sive additions that are given to the tale 
of scandal as it circulates through a 
neighbourhood. They sometimes pro- 
ceed from malice, but oftener I believe 
from an idle, gossiping propensity— 
from the love of being listened to with 
astonishment—-from the want, not of 
heart and tenderness but from the want 
of cautious and reflecting prudence— 
from the hurry and inadvertence of the 
moment when acquaintances meet, and 
the happy hour is given to thoughtless- 
ness and to gayety. Let it be remem- 
bered, however, that thoughtlessness is 
criminal when it is employed in giving 
currency to falsehood—when it tends to 


THE GUILT OF CALUMNY 


[SERM. 


mislead society on a matter of such 
sacred importance as the character of 
one of its members—when it consigns 
the upright to shame and to infamy— 
when it sets up the hasty cry of execra- 
tion in cases where the evidence is un- 
certain, and candour tells us to for- 
bear. | 

The action which calumny condemns 
in its unhappy victim should be at- 
tributed to him with hesitation, because 
in each step of its progress the story is 
apt to gain an addition from the mistakes 
of the inconsiderate, or from the fabri- 
cations of a deliberate malignity. Tha 
motive from which the action is said te 
have originated should, if possible, be 
assigned with still greater hesitation, 
because it lies in the heart—it hides in 
a veil of impenetrable secrecy—it is 
unseen by every eye save Omniscienca 
—it is written on ‘no record save the 
book of judgment—it remains untold 
till that awful day when the universe 
shall hear it—when the worlds shall 
assemble round our Redeemer’s throne, 
and listen to the revelations of justice. 
There is no subject that demands more 
time and more investigation than a 
question of character; yet how seldom 
do men think of suspending their judg- 
ment—how rash and how presumptuous 
in their decisions—how prone to malic- 
ious interpretation in cases that are am- 
biguous—how fond of indulging in the 
eloquence of invective, and how elated 
with the malignant pleasure of throw- 
ing ridicule on the absent, and sending 
the tale of detraction through the coun- 
try. Itisa peculiarity which you must 
all have observed, that where the case 
is positively uncertain the general pro- 
pensity is to give it on the side of con- 
demnation—to attach to it the most 
malignant construction of which it is 
susceptible—to dress it up in the colours 
of infamy, and to give all the confidence 
of truth to what are at best but the 
fancies of a suspicious temper. It is in 
this way ‘that the world is ever doing 
the grossest injustice to individuals— 
that the innocent are at times repelled 
by the scowl of suspicion—that virtue 
labours under the contempt of a deluded 
people—that the man whose heart rises 
in all the warmth of affection can ofter 
meet with no eye of kindness to cheer 


ud B} 


him. no friend to enlighten the solitude 
of his bosom. ‘There is a worth that 
escapes the eye of an unthinking world 
—a deed of exalted charity that they 
never hear of—a tear of secret affection 
that shrinks from notice, and courts the 
indulgence of retirement—a life spent 
in unseen acts of beneficence which are 
only recorded in the book of heaven. 
To all this the world is a strangers it 
sees not the heart; it forms its estimate 
upon the appearances of a delusive ex- 
terior; it overlooks the intention, and 
in the temerity of its heedless decisions, 
will lacerate and deform the best of char- 
acters. The world is the slave of man- 
ners. It will love you if you can put 
on the smiling countenance of affection ; 
it will give you credit for a social and 
benevolent heart if you can lead your 
company to mirth, and maintain the 
frank and open air of an undissembled 
honesty. But how many of the first 
of our race are incapable of manner— 
are oppressed by the embarrassments of 
modesty—shrink from the observation 
of the world—sive themselves up to the 
silence of an awkward timidity, and 
under the disguise of a cold and un- 
promising exterior, are received in every 
company with the frowns of antipathy 
and disgust. The character of such a 
man is not known beyond the little cir- 
cle of his friends and of his family —of 
those poor whom his bounty sustains, 
and those cottages which his charity 
enlightens. He lives to obscurity, and 
dies in forgetfulness; no epitaph to bla- 
zon his virtues—no pomp of heraldry 
to embalm his remembrance. His 
death is never heard of among the tid- 
ings of the market-place. His only 
memorial is the memorial of simple and 
- unnoticed virtue—the tears of his chil- 
dren, and the regret of his humble 
neighbourhood. 

Let the sense of our ignorance restrain 
a disposition to rash and unthinking cal- 
umny. The action is often transformed 
by the errors of inadvertence, or the ar- 
tifices of a wilful misrepresentation. The 
motive is as often discuised from the 
secret and unknown circumstances on 
which it is founded. To tell the motive 
we must fathom the mysteries of the 
heart which sits in an invisible retire- 
ment, and eludes the penetration of 

50 


THE GUILT OF CALUMNY. 








395 


mortals. In deciding upon a partial 
view of circumstances we run the risk 
of a total misconception; the addition 
ofa single fact will often suffice to re- 
verse the judgment we had formed and 
to convince us that that action is laud- 
able which, in the temerity of our un- 
thinking ignorance, we had before pro- 
nounced to be criminal. When a man 
shuts himself up in retirement, and ab- 
stains from the expenses of hospitality, 
calumny willimmediately denounce him 
as an avaricious and unsociable charac- 
ter; but calumny should stop its mouth 
when it hears that all the savings of 
this frugality are given to support the 
infirmity of an aged parent. When a 
man gives up the labourious exercises 
of his employment, and becomes an 
humble dependent on the charity of 
others, calumny will instantly ascribe 
it to the love of ease and of indolence : 
but calumny should soften its decision 
when it hears that his strength is wasted 
by the secret and unnoticed visitations 
of disease. When a man keeps back 
from the celebration of a sacrament, 
calumny will talk of his impious con- 
tempt for ordinances; but calumny 
should assume a milder tone when it 
hears that under the death of a beloved 
child he has withdrawn himself to the 
grief of solitude, and labours under all 
the agitations of a dark and disordered 
melancholy. When a man turns away 
from solicitations of charity, calumny 
may say that it is the gripe of avarice ; 
but calumny should reserve its sentence 
when it hears that he is on the eve of 
falling in the tide of bankruptcy, and 
that he will surrender the wreck of his 
fortune to satisfy the higher claims of 
justice and of his creditors. Ignorant 
then as we are of motives and of cir- 
cumstances, we should learn to be cau- 
tious and hesitating on a question of 
character, to check every slanderous and 
malignant propensity, to feel how much 
is due to truth and justice, and if not 
able to hush to abhor the tale of infamy. 
Let us at least withdraw our counte- 
nance from its propagation, and blush 
to prostitute our testimony to the un- 
supported assertions of a petty and con- 
temptible scandal. What can be said 
of those who sit in close convention and 
plot the massacre of a virtuous reputa- 


394 


tion, who delight to survey human na- 
ture in its most odious and degrading 
attitudes, who look with an exulting 
eye over the deformed exhibitions of 
vice and folly, who seem to feast on the 
melancholy picture of another’s guilt, 
whose ears are only opened to the tale 
of detraction, and whose mouths are 
only opened to traduce and to vilify? 
If anything can add to our indignation 
it is the midnight and impenetrable 
secrecy under which these proceedings 
are conducted, the artful insinuations 
they practice against him whom they 
have singled out as the victim of their 
calumny, the cowardly advantages that 
they take of his absence, the smile of 
affection and civility which they can 
force into their countenance, while their 
heart is brooding over the most dark 
and malignant purposes. Let it be re- 
membered that we may be guilty of 
calumny without speaking evil. This 
is the most odious and disgusting of all 
calumny ; not an open and intrepid as- 
sertion, but a cowardly insinuation, a 
hint, a sneaking indirect artifice, an ex- 
pression of regret, a distant allusion to 
set malignity to the work of conjecture, 
and to awaken the suspicion of your 
company. This is calumny in fact, 
though not in form. It is sure to be 
accompanied with all the mischief of 
calumny. It gives sufficient foundation 
for a tale to circulate through the coun- 
try, an impression to run through all 
the workshops of scandal in the neigh- 
bourhood, a groundwork from which a 
diseased fancy will conjure up its images 
of guilt and of profligacy, a report which, 
however trifling in its commencement. 
will rise through successive additions to 
a ruinous and malignant falsehood. Let 
the tale of detraction be listened to with 
distrust. Much is to be deducted; all 
the errors that gradually creep into rep- 
resentations from the inaccuracy of the 
careless, or the knowing and deliberate 
fabrications of the malignant; all the 
errors that proceed from our ignorance 
of other circumstances by which the 
merit of the action may be most essen- 
tially affected ; and above all, the errors 
that proceed from our ignorance of the 
heart, and of its secret and unfathom- 
able mysteries. Such is the openness 
of the public ear to the tale of detrac- 


THE GUILT OF CALUMNY. 


[SERM. 


tion that calumny is too often success- 
ful even in her most base and unprin- 
cipled efforts. No virtue however ex- 
alted can escape her foul and pestilential 
attacks; she can array the loveliness of 
innocence in the garb of infamy, and 
turn the scowl of every eye against the 
most pure and upright and gentle of 
characters. This is an awful ‘combina- . 
tion of wickedness—the combination of 
malignity and falsehood—a combination 
against all that is sacred in truth, and 
all that is endearing in domestic tran- 
quillity—a combination against the hap- 
piness of families and the peace of so- 
ciety—a combination against the reign 
of virtue in the world, and against the 
best comforts which cheer and alleviate 
the lot of humanity. 

This leads me to the second head of 
discourse—The sufferings which calum: 
ny inflicts upon its unhappy victim. Ali 
are born to feel the salutary control of 
public opinion. It is a most powerfu! 
engine for the preservation of virtue. 
Men will compass sea and land te 
gain the applause of their countrymen. 
Enough for them the reward of honour- 
able distinction. It is the voice of glory 
to which they listen, and the voice is 
omnipotent. It is to the inspiration of 
her voice that we owe all that is exalted 
in patriotism, in war, in philosophy. 
For her the statesman will eet 
maintain his integrity, and to be the 
man of the people he will renounce the 
favour of princes and the gains of a pet- 
ty ambition. For her the commander 
will meet death with a fearless counte- 
nance, and eye with intrepid composure 
the scenes of blood and of violence into 
which he is entering. For her the stu- 
dent sits by the hght of the midnight 
taper, and in the animating anticipations 
of future eminence can renounce without 
a sigh the charms of indolence and of 
gayety. Kven to the home-bred walks 
of life and of business the voice of glory 
is not a stranger. You will meet with 
ambition in the lowest cottages of the 
country. Its aim is humble, but i 
is only the obscurity of circumstances 
which restrains it. In kind and in char- 
acter it is the same with that ambition 
which figures to the eye of the world on 
a more exalted theatre—the same un- 
wearied and persevering constancy in 


the prosecution of its object, the same 
jealousy of reputation, the same insatia- 
ble appetite for applause, the same tri- 
umphant elevation in the moment of 
success, the same misery under the suf- 
ferings of disappointment. ‘To see man 
it is not necessary to traverse all coun- 
tries, or to witness all the varieties of 
religion and government. It is not 
necessary to step beyond the limits of 
the little town or hamlet in which Prov- 
idence has placed you. You will meet 
with all the elements of human charac- 
ter in the rustic abodes of simplicity 
and nature. You will there meet with 
that ambition which if placed in a 
higher sphere would scatter disorder 
among the nations, and strive to control 
the destiny of empiries. You will meet 
with that cruelty which, if at the head 
of a victorious army, would carry out- 
rage and violence into the habitations 
of the imnocent, and kindle in malig- 
nant joy at the barbarity of war. You 
will meet with that avarice which, if 
elevated to the management of a prov- 
ince, would fill the country with taxa- 
tion, and flourish on the distress and 
poverty of millions. You will also meet 
with all the more virtuous and honour- 
able propensities of the mind. with that 
goodness which in a higher sphere would 
have risen to an exalted patriotism, with 
that contempt for the disgraceful which 
would have lifted its voice against the 
measures of a corrupt and degenerate 
policy, with that firmness which would 
have withstood the frown of power and 
the fury of popular commotion.—But to 
return from this digression. 

What in the highest stations of soci- 
ety is called respect for the public opin- 
ion, is in humbler and more contracted 
spheres called respect for the opinion of 
the neighbourhood. Respect for the 
opinion of others is a constant but irre- 
sistible principle in the human constitu- 
tion. ‘To disdain it is the boast of an 
affected independence ; it is an effusion 
of vanity; it is an idle pretence to a 
stoical and romantic elevation of charac- 
ter. Nota man, I will venture to say, 
but feels his dependence on public opin- 
ion. Even though armed with the 
consciousness of integrity he feels him- 
self compelled to pay homage at its 
shrine. You will seldom, I may say 


fHE GUILT OF CALUMNY. 





395 


you will never, meet with an example 
of independence solitary and unsup- 
ported—an independence founded ex- 
clusively upon the consciousness of 
virtue and the silent reflections of a 
desolate and unbefriended bosom—an 
independence that can brave the scowl 
of every eye and the desertion of all its 
acquaintances. A man of firm and in- 
dependent energy will at times appear 
who can stand before the eye of the 
world in the manly and intrepid attitude 
of defiance; but I contend that this 
energy is supported from without. It 
is supported by the testimony of some 
selected person on whose esteem he 
places his pride and his enjoyment; it 
is supported by the anticipation of that 
day when the eyes of the public shall be 
opened and their curses converted into 
admiration and gratitude; it is sup- 
ported, in fact, by that very respect for 
public opinion which he now professes 
to disown, and of which his proceedings 
would speak him to be totally divested. 
But take from him the last remnants 
of his friends, take from him his last 
refuge against the malignity of an un- 
thinking world, give him no eye of wel- 
come to which he may retire from the 
persecutions of injustice, let every coun- 
tenance bear hatred against him, and 
let there be no voice of kindness to alle- 
viate the gloom of his solitude, he will 
fall even though encompassed with the 
armor of virtue; the accumulated weight 
of infamy will be unsupportable to him; 
he will pine away in the anguish of 
desertion, and welcome the silence of 
the grave as his only retreat from the 
horrors of this world’s cruelty. Let the 
severity of the world’s opinion then be 
reserved as the punishment and the 
correction of vice. But calumny directs 
this severity against the virtuous. Ca- 
lumny dooms the upright to contempt 
and infamy. Calumny tramples on all 
distinctions of character, and makes any 
man a victim to her maticious artifices. 
To take away a good name is to take 
away the dearest privilege of integrity. 
It is to take away the last consolation 
of the unfortunate. It is to take away 
that generous pride which glows even 
in the poor man’s bosom, and supports 
the vigor of his purposes. Ask him 
who has gone through life, and felt its 


396 


vicissitudes, who has outlived the wreck 
of his circumstances, and is forced in 
the evening of his days to descend to 
the humble tenement of poverty—he 
will tell you that he has not lost all 
while his character remains to him— 
that he still inherits the best gift which 
providence can bestow—the sympathy of 
an affectionate neighbourhood. Dreary 
is the winter of his age, but it has the 
homage of a sincere esteem to soothe 
and to enlighten it. Sad is the fall of 
his family; but why should they feel 
themselves degraded ?—none can im- 
peach their honesty or attach dishonor 
totheirname. To the eye of sentiment, 
aman like this appears more respectable 
than even in his better days of opulence 
and comfort. We venerate the gray 
hairs of the unfortunate—of him who 
bears up with cheerfulness against the 
hardships which heaven has inflicted—— 
of him who retires in silence and gives 
the remainder of his years to peaceful 
obscurity, who spends the evening of 
his life im humble and uncomplaining 
patience, whom experience has taught 
wisdom, and wisdom has taught the 
exalted lessons of contentment and piety. 
To pursue the unfortunate with calumny 
is to give the last aggravation to their 
suffermgs. It is to make them poor 
indeed. It is toadd to the pangs of that 
heart that is already wrung with the 
cruelty of misfortune. It is removing 
the only support that is left to them in 
this dark and uncertain world. It is to 
bestrew with thorns that weary journey 
which it has pleased heaven to make 
otherwise so painful. ‘There are some 
minds of peculiar sensibility which can- 
not withstand the scowl of prejudice 
and disdain, to whom dislike is painful 
and whose every joy withers away at 
the glance of coldness. How severe to 
such is the rude touch of calumny! 
How cruel to withdraw the smiles of 
affection from him whose every purpose 
is conceived in the spirit of benevolence, 
to sting by coarse imputations the deli- 
cacy of his bosom, to distress by an un- 
kind look that heart which breathes all 
the soul of goodness and honesty. To 
a man of kind intentions the frown of 
hatred is insupportable. He knows that 
he does not deserve it, and he feels its 
mjustice. 


THE GUILT OF CALUMNY. 


Heaven can witness his in-| posture. 


[SERM. 


tegrity, and it is hard that the world 
should be to him a wilderness, or that 
the tranquility of his life should be out- 
raged by the effects of a malignant 
calumny. I do not say that the world 
in its unkind treatment of virtue is ac- 
tuated by a spirit of wanton cruelty: ‘1 
impute it to rash and unthinking igno- 
rance; | regard it as a dupe to the ma- 
licious, artifices of those who have an 
interest in misleading the public opinion, 
and in tarnishing the honours of an up- 
right and respectable character. When 
the world is undeceired, it is ever ready 
to do justice to those whom it has in- 
jured by its opinion—to sympathize 
with them in their unmerited sufferings 
—to assert the cause of disgraced and 
persecuted virtue, and to raise the voice 
of a generous indignation against the 
arts of an unfeelingcalumny. But how 
often does it happen that the world is 
never undeceived; that prejudice has 
shut its ears against the representations 
of the candid; that the remonstrances 
of the injured are never listened to; that 
they are given to the wind; that they 
are never heard till he reach the grave’s 
peaceful retreat, and unbosom his sor- 
rows to that heavenly witness who has - 
seen ali his griefs and all his errors? 
The public mind of every free country 
is generous, and ready to award to the 
deserving its tribute of admiration and 
gratitude. But though the public mind 
be generous, it is the slave of prejudice 
and misconception. It takes its tone 
from the reigning system of policy and 
of opinion. In the hands of the artful, 
it can be fashioned into an instrument 
of injustice, persecution, and revenge. 
The history of our own country furnishes , 
innumerable examples of men consigned 
to infamy and to desertion for having 
uttered a sentiment offensive to the 
reigning politics of the day—for having 
given way to the warmth of an honest 
enthusiasm—for rising in all the ardour 
of an exalted patriotism—for lifting up 
their voice and their testimony against 
the measures of a corrupt and domineer- 
ing influence. I do not say that when 
the public combine against the fame or 
the interest of such a character they do 
it in the spirit of malignity. They are 
deceived. They are the dupes of im- 
A false alarm is made to oc- 


u.] THE TROUBLED HEART COMFORTED. 397 


cupy the public ear. The ardour of | ness of competition stirs up every wicked 
- patriotism is stigmatized as the turbu- | passion of the heart, and throws it loose 
lence of rebellion. We at times hear | from the restraints of principle. 

of men lying under a cloud. Trace The mischief of calumny is not con- 
the ignominy of these men to its founda- | fined to the object against which it is 
tion, and you will often find that it | directed. It invades the peace of his 
originates in a political artifice—in a| family; its cruelty descends to the 
ery set up by an interested combina- | youngest of his children who can blush 
tion of enemies—in the unprincipled | at a father’s disgrace, or whose little 
hostility of the powerful against an ob- | bosom can fire indignant at the asper- 
noxious individual—in the virulent and | sion of a father’s integrity. A parent’s 
rancourous malignity of a domineer- | reputation is a sacred inheritance. It 
ing party. . Examples of this kind are | reflects luster on all his connections. 
not confined to the great theatre of | His children lift their heads in triumph 
political contention. You will meet | amid the ills of poverty and misfortune. 
with it in every petty district of the | They carry him to the grave, but the 
country—in our towns where ancient | remembrance of his example remains 
integrity is disgraced, and a putrid | with them—ait proves the guardian of 
electioneering morality deals calumny | their integrity; corruption in vain of- 
against the virtuous ; in our corporations | fers her allurements, there is a princi- 
where monopoly reigns triumphant, and | ple within them that proves at once 
envy and interest combine to crush the | their pride and their protection—it is 
independence of an aspiring character; | the image of that departed father whom 
and in all those numerous departments | they study to emulate and to admire. 
of life and of business where the eager- 


SERMON III. 
The Troubled Heart Comforted. : 


“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.”—Joun xiv. 1. 


without the light of the gospel how cold 
and how dreary are its consolations— 
what a dread uncertainty in the region 
which lies beyond it! The body is laid 
in the churchyard; but where is the de- 
parted spirit? The bones are mingling 
with the dust of the ground; but can 


Ir is remarkable that all the images 
employed to represent human life are 
significant of weakness, instability, and 
suffering—a pilgrimage, a dark and 
toilsome journey, a wilderness of tears, 
a scene of vanity, a tale of which the 
remembrance vanishes, a flower which 
every blast of heaven can wither into | the life and sensibility of the mind be 
decay. From the helplessness of in-| extinguished? The flesh is a prey to 
fancy to the decrepitude of age the life | worms; but will you say that intelli- 
of man is an endless scene of care and | gence can die, or that the soul of man 
of anxiety—at one time agitated by the | can wither into nothing? Good hea- 
‘sufferings of a disappointed ambition, | vens! is there some distant land to 
at another labouring under the infir- | which the ghosts of our fathers repair? 
mity of disease, at another depressed | Do they lift the voice of joy, or weep in 
‘by the hardships of society, at another} gloomy remembrance over the days that 
humbled under, the frown of pride and | are past? Does felicity reign in the 
‘insolence, at another afflicted by the | abode of spirits, or do they mourn that 
awful desolations which death makes | immortality which condemns them to 
among friends and among families. The | never-ending years of pain and of soli- 
grave is said to be a refuge from the| tude? Is the continuation of life on 
pains and sufferings of mortality; but| the other side of the grave a continua- 








398 


tion of that wretchedness which dis- 
tresses the present existence of mortals? 
These are momentous questions; but 
who is there to satisfy our anxiety ? 
No visitation of light or knowledge from 
the tomb—no midnight whisper of de- 
parted friend to tell us the secret of our 
path ; all is doubt and apprehension and 
impenetrable silence. Our hearts are 
troubled within us, and seek for a com- 
forter—and a Comforter hath come ; the 
day-spring from on high hath. visited 
us; the secrets of futurity have been 
laid open; a celestial splendour now 
sits on the habitations of darkness; a 
great deliverer hath appeared, who is 
the healing of the nations, and the sal- 
vation of all the ends of the earth. He 
comes with tidings of comfort: “In my 
Father’s house are many mansions. Let 
not your heart be troubled; ye believe 
in God, believe also in me.” 

In the prosecution of the following 
discourse [ shall attempt to prove that 
there is no trouble to which the heart 
of man is exposed that a belief in the 
doctrines of the gospel is not calculated 
to purify or to alleviate. But in preach- 
ing the consolations of religion there is 
one caution that cannot be too frequently 
impressed upon the minds of Christians. 
These consolations can only be address- 
ed to the sincere—to him who can ap- 
peal for the honesty of his principles to 
something more substantial than the 
words of holiness that drop from his 
tongue, or to the tears of penitential 
sorrow that flow from his eyes—to him 
who can appeal to the purity of his life, 
to the integrity of his bargains, to his 
deeds of active and disinterested benefi- 
cence, to the fair and open generosity 
of his proceedings, to that unspotted in- 
nocence of character which no breath 
of suspicion can defile, no calumny can 
impeach. It is only to a character like 
this that we can address the consola- 
tions of the gospel, and these consola- 
tions are the most exalted privilege of 
humanity. They are the great remedy 
against its sufferings. They give tri- 
umph and elevation to the wretched, 
strength to the infirm, and comfort to 
the bed of agony and disease. This is 
a world of tears; but the gospel tells 
us that he who soweth in tears shall 
reap in joy. It points out to us the 





THE TROUBLED HEART COMFORTED. 


[SERM. 


peace of a blessed eternity, and supports 
the spirit of the afflicted by the trimph- 
ant anticipation of better days. Many 
are the evils which darken and distress 
the pilgrimage of the virtuous. But it 
is a pilgrimage which leads them to 
heaven, to those mansions of felicity 
where they shall rest from their labours, 


and all their sorrows be forgotten. The — 


consolations of the gospel sustain the 
heart of the unfortunate ; they enlighten 
the last days of the old man who mourns 
in all the helplessness of age; they tell 
him that the eye of his Redeemer is 
upon him, and that He will soon trans- 
late him to an inheritance of unfading 
joy. The gospel is a dispensation of 
comfort., It is the good man’s anchor. 
It bids him rejoice even in the gloomiest 
hours of affliction. 1t chases despair 
from his bosom, and though surrounded 
with all the dreary vicissitudes of this 
world, he can rise to the throne of merey 
in songs of praise and of gratitude. 
Such are the triumphs of our Redeem- 
er’s love—such the debt of gratitude 


that man owes to his Saviour—to Him 


who has opened the path to immortal- 
ity, and given the inheritance of angels 
to the frail children of guilt and disobe- 
dience—to Him who has cheered the 
awful desolation of the grave, and re- 
vealed to us the triumphs of that eter- 
nal day which lies beyond it—to Him 
who came down to earth with the tid- 
ings of salvation, and taught His disci- 
ples to believe in the resurrection of the 
upright. Our Saviour felt the suffer- 
ings of humanity, and He therefore 
knew what consolations to apply. He 
felt the vanity of this world’s pleasures, 
and He secures to us a treasure in hea- 
ven. He felt the cruelty of this world’s 
hatred, and He has propitiated for us 
the friendship of that mighty and un- 
seen Being whose eye is continuall 
upon us, and whose benevolence will 
never desert us. He felt the painful se- 
verity of this world’s injustice, and He 
has revealed to us a day of triumph and 
of deliverance, when He will come to 
exalt the upright, and to vindicate the 
wrongs of suffering innocence. 

When our Saviour addressed His dis- 
ciples in the words of the text, their 
prospects were dreary and disconsolate. 
They saw enemies multiply on every 


s 


ur. } 


side—the storm of persecution gather- 
ing; they saw the bigotry of a deluded 
people in arms to oppose them; they 
saw their numbers weakened every hour 
by the desertion of the people ; they saw 
themselves withering rapidly away into 
a feeble and unprotected remnant ; they 
saw the rulers of the country in fury 
against them, and brooding over their 
awful purposes of vengeance. Such 
were the last days of the meek and pa- 
' tient Jesus—deserted by all but a chosen 
_ few who still persevered in the fidelity 

of their attachment, and rallied round 
to support Him amid the storm of per- 
secuting violence. Yes! the disciples 
of our Saviour have left us a noble ex- 
ample of friendship and independence. 
Theirs was the pure and generous intre- 
pidity of the upright. It was the sa- 
ered elevation of principle. It was the 
manly and commanding attitude of vir- 
tue. It was what I would call the su- 
blime of human character; the serenity 
of conscious rectitude; a mind enthroned 
on the firm and immovable basis of in- 
tegrity, and that can maintain its tran- 
quillity while tempests rage, and the 
blackness of despair gathers around it. 
What an interesting picture !—our Sa- 
- viour surrounded with the little band 
- of disciples that still remained to Him 
among the wreck of His adherents, sus- 
taining the fortitude of their spirits im 
the hour of terror. O religion! how 
sublime thy trizmphs—how glorious 
thy victories! What a sacred inde- 
pendence dost thou inspire! What a 
noble superiority over the passions and 
weaknesses of mortality! What intre- 
pidity in the day of trial and of danger! 
What calm and inward elevation even 
amid the terrors of martyrdom! We 
do not now live under these terrors; 
but there is no generation in the history 
of man that is exempted from affliction. 
There is a sorrow in the heart of man 
which nothing but religion can allevi- 
ate; a trouble that can find no refuge 
but in the consolations of piety; a dis- 
quietude that can only rest in the hope 
of heaven; a darkness which can find 
no relief but in the faith of the gospel 
and in the light of our Redeemer’s coun- 
tenance. 

Let me confine myself to a few of the 
more striking examples from the cata- 


THE TROUBLED HEART COMFORTED. 


399 


logue of human afflictions. There is the 
infirmity of disease—a sickness which 
all the administration of earthly medi- 
cine cannot alleviate; a disorder that 
bears down upon its unhappy victim, 
and carries him through years of pain 
and of languishing to the grave of si- 
lence. There are some into whose 
gloomy chambers the light of day never 
enters; who moan out a dreary exist- 
ence in the agony of distress; on whom 
the hand of Providence lies heavy. and 
whom disease in the severity of her vis- 
itations has numbered among the chil- 
dren of the wretched. What an aggra- 
vation to the miseries of such a state 
when it is embittered by the hardships 
of poverty; when the man of sickness 
can meet with no cordial to sustain him, 
and no attendance to administer to his 
necessities; when he has nothing to 
trust to but the reluctant charity of a 
neighbour whom decency has compelled 
to come forward with the offering of his 
services; when he lies stretched on a 
bed of restlessness with no child to weep 
over. him—no friend to support him in 
the last hours of his pilgrimage—surely 
you will say such a man is born to an 
inheritance of melancholy and despair. 
But there is no melancholy which the 
religion of Jesus cannot enlighten: no 
despair which His consolatory voice 
cannot revive into confidence and Joy. 
Christianity is ever present to soothe 
the agonies of the wretched ; and in the 
last struggles of the dying man you 
may see the picture of its truumph. He 
sees death approach him with an un- 
troubled heart. He believes in God, 
and he believes in Jesus His messen- 
ger. The grave is to hima refuge from 
suffering, and the passport to a triumph- 
ant immortality. To him the silence 
of the tomb is welcome. He lies down 
in quietness, but he will again awaken 
to the light of an everlasting day. 
Another example of trouble and dis- 
tress in the history of man is the treach- 
ery and injustice of neighbours. In 
preaching the consolations of religion it 
is a most unprofitable display of elo- 
quence to dwell upon scenes of romantic 
and imaginary distress. Such pictures 
as those are the mere amusements of a 
poetical fancy, and can serve no sub- 
stantial purpose of comfort or instruc- 


400 


tion. If we wish religion to be useful, 
we must dwell on its application to act- 
ual and everyday occurrences. We must 
descend to all the realities of human life. 
We must accompany our hearers into 
their houses, their families, and their 
business. We must make them feel 
that religion is something more. than 
the dream of fanaticism, or the idle ab- 
straction ofa visionary. We must make 
them feel its weight and its importance, 
and shrink from no familiarity however 
unwarranted by the example of our 
great patterns and directors in pulpit 
eloquence, or however offensive to the 
pride of a morbid and fastidious deli- 
cacy. Any other views of religion are 
vain and unprofitable. They only serve 
to disguise the human character, and to 
throw a false and delusive coloring over 
the walks of life. They resemble those 
works of fiction which may give delight 
and entertainment tothe fancy, or amuse 
the reader by the splendours of an orna- 
mental eloquence, while they leave no 
lesson behind them, and can be trans- 
ferred to no purpose of substantial im- 
provement. It is under those impres- 
sions that I bring forward the injus- 
tice of neighbours as standing high in 
the catalocue of human afflictions. We 
have all felt it to be of real and frequent 
occurrence, and it is certainly one of the 
most painful feelings to which you can 
expose a mind of pure and delicate in- 
tegrity. I know nothing more calcu- 
lated to provoke the indignation of an 
honest mind than to see the simplicity 
of an upright character surrounded by 
the low arts of knavery and imposition 
—trampled upon by the villainy of those 
whom gratitude ought to have secured 
to his interest—laughed at and insulted 
because he has too little suspicion to 
guard against the tricks of a sneaking 
duplicity, and too much generosity to 
distrust that man who comes to him 
under the disguise of smooth words and 
an open countenance. ‘I'he loss which 
the injured man sustains from the in- 
justice of his neighbour forms but a 
small part of his vexation. When a 
loss is the pure effect of accident or mis- 
fortune, it may not deprive us of a mo- 
ment’s sleep, or cost us a moment’s un- 
easiness. But when the same or an 
inferior loss is the effect of injustice, it 


THE TROUBLED HEART COMFORTED. 


[SERM. 


comes home to the feelings with a se- 
verity which to some minds is most 
painfully tormenting. The loss is of 
little importance; but who can bear to | 
have the generosity of an open and un- 
suspecting confidence insulted—who 
can bear to be surrounded with false- 
hood, artifice, and intrigue—who can 
bear that most grievous of all disap- - 
pointments, the treachery of one who 
has practiced on our simplicity, and on 
whose integrity we placed a fond and 
implicit reliance—who can bear to be 
placed in a theatre where malignity and 
injustice are in arms against us, where 
we can meet with no affection to en- 
lighten the solitude of our bosom, no 
friendship in which to repose the defence 
of our reputation and interest? To a 
man whose heart rises in all the warmth 
of affectionate sincerity the treachery of 
violated friendship is insupportable. He 
feels himself placed in a wilderness 
where all is dark, and cheerless, and 
solitary. He resigns himself to all the 
horrors of a disordered melancholy, and 
his spirit sinks within him under the 
refléction of this world’s injustice. But 
let not his heart be troubled, he has a 
friend in heaven. The Hternal Son of 
tod will never desert him. The angels 
of mercy smile upon his footsteps, and . 
hail his approach to their peaceful man- 
sions. There charity never ends. There 
he will celebrate in songs of triumph 
the joys of truth and of righteousness 
He will inherit the affection of the good, 
and join in those eternal prayers which 
rise to the throne of mercy from one 
blessed and united family. 

Another example of trouble and dis- 
tress in the history of man is that anx- 
iety which every parent must feel under 
the embarrassment of a numerous and 
unprovided offspring. He has much to 
care for. This is a world of vice, and 
disease, and misfortune. The death of 
a child may bring affliction, but what 
is worse, the corruption of a child may 
bring infamy and disgrace upon his 
family. The love of parents never 
leaves their children. From the cry of 
feeble infancy to the strength and the in- 
dependence of manhood, it follows after 
them, and shares in all their joys and 
in all their anxieties. They go abroad 
into the world, and the hearts of their 


1v.] 


parents go abroad along with them. 
The warmth of a mother’s affection can 
never desert them: she hears the howl- 
ing of the midnight storm, and prays 
that Heaven would watch over the 
safety of her children. Happy the day 
of their return, when the old man gets 
his sons and his daughters around him. 
They are his staff in the years of his 
infirmity. Sweet to his soul is the hour 


of family devotion—when he rises in 


FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT CAVERS. 


401 


gratitude to heaven for giving peace to 
his last days—when he prays God that 
He would take care of his children, that 
they may live to carry him to the burial- 
place of his fathers, and that they may 
all rise again to rejoice forever in our 
Redeemer’s kingdom. 
“Then kneeling down to heaven’s eternal King— 
The Saint, the Father, and the husband prays; 


Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing, 
That thus they all shall meet in better days.” 





SERMON IV. 


Farewell Discourse at Cavers.* 


* Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, 
and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness.”—Tirus i. 1. 


Ir has been insinuated to the preju- 
dice of our religion, that its effects are 
far from corresponding with the magni- 
ficent anticipations of its first founders. 
They predicted that in the establish- 
ment of Christianity we would enjoy 
the reign of benevolence and peace. 
But let us survey the broad aspect of 
the world and its inhabitants—the am- 
bition which involves it in the miseries 
of war—the selfishness which is un- 
moved by the plaintive cry of distress— 
the deceit which fills the earth with the 
-exclamations of the injured—the cruelty 
which feasts on spectacles of pain—the 
licentiousness which degenerates a peo- 
ple, as it withers the graces of youthful 
modesty—the superstition which in its 
groveling subjection to externals deserts 
the manly and respectable virtues of 
social life—surely wickedness abound- 
eth in the land, and the cry thereof as- 


* The latter months of Dr. Chalmers’ connection 
with Cavers were engrossed with the preparations for 
the ensuing winter, during which he taught the Mathe- 
matical Classes in the University of St. Andrews. 
‘These preparations, and perhaps also the hurry of sep- 
aration, have left evident marks of haste upon this 
farewell discourse. The reader, besides, will notice 
that in two instances an “ &c.” is placed at the end of a 
paragraph. This mark frequently occurs in the manu- 
script of the earlier sermons, indicating the insertion at 
the time of delivery of some favorite passage previously 
written and committed to memory. A sermon so hur- 
riedly written, so incomplete, so fragmentary as that 
which follows, should not have been inserted had it not 
been that a comparison of its closing address, with the 
other farewell discourses given in this volume, promotes 
80 largely one of the leading purposes of the present 
publication. 

50 





cendeth unto heaven. Are these the 
boasted effects of religion—of that relig- 
ion which was to extend through the 
world the triumphs of truth and vir- 
tue—of that religion which announced 
peace on earth and good-will to the chil- 
dren of men; and which promised to 
unite the world into one family by the 
sacred law of love? For what purpose 
that illustrious succession of prophets 
who appeared to alleviate the gloom 
and ignorance of antiquity? Tor what 
purpose did the Son of God descend 
from the celestial abodes of love and of 
virtue—live amid the sufferings of per-— 
secution and injustice, and die a martyr 
to that cause He had so nobly defended ? 
Even now, thought we possess the sa- 
ered treasure of His instructions— 
though refined by all the improvements 
of art—though educated in all the wis- 
dom of the ancients—even now we ex: 
hibit the vices which disgraced an age 
of ignorance and barbarity. To palli- 
ate, however, the enormity of the pic- 
ture, it may be urged that the most im- 
portant effects of Christianity are from 
their nature invisible, while the prom- 
inent features of vice must strike the 
observation of the most superficial and 
indifferent. Vice stalks abroad, and ex- 
poses its shameless forehead in the face 
of day. It attracts attention by the 
glaring deformity of its character—by 
the tumultuous disorder it creates in so- 


402 


ciety—by the outcry of those whom it 
injures—by the transitory splendour of 
its career—and by the disgraceful igno- 
miny of its fall. Virtue seeks the 
shade; it shrinks from applause ; it de- 
lights in peaceful, unostentatious retire- 
ment. ‘To find virtue we must seek for 
it, because it shuns observation. Vir- 
tue is humble and unambitious of 
' praise; it doeth good in secret; it is 
content with the gratitude of those 
orphans whom it shelters—of those 
aged to whose sickness it administers 
—of that family whom it rescues from 
want. It seeks something nobler than 
the applause of men. Amid the suffer- 
ings of contempt and injustice it is sup- 
ported by the testimony of its own con- 
science, and by the prospect of that day 
when it shall be restored to its honours 
and invested with the glories of an im- 
mortal crown. 

But though these considerations may 
seem in part to alleviate the darkness 
of the picture, and to console our feel- 
ings amid the multiplied displays of 
human vice, yet truth and justice force 
us to proclaim the affecting depravity 
of man. The more we extend our ac- 
quaintance with human life, the more 
we see of villany in all its varieties. 
Here one feasting on the spoils of in- 
justice and oppression—there another 
plotting his wiles of seduction; here 
one under the mask of friendship broods 


over dark and deceitful intentions—. 


there another disguises the vices of his 
character in the parade and solemnity 
of religious observances; here parents 
living on the infamy of their children— 
there children afflicting the old age of 
their parents by their ingratitude. Who 
can enumerate the endless varieties of 
human guilt? Now envy sickens at 
the prospect of another’s bliss—now 
calumny delights to spread its insidious 
poison—now licentiousness grovels in 
the low haunts of pollution—now cru- 
elty rejoices in the crash of families. 
Yes, we have often heard the instruct- 
ors of religion reproached for their sloth 
and indifference; but let critics remem- 
ber that the scanty produce of the har- 
vest may be imputed to the unmanage- 
able nature of the soil as well as to the 
indolence of the husbandman ; let them 
remember that the great obstacles to 


FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT CAVERS. 





[SERM. 


the advancement of religion exist among 
themse.ves; in the perverseness of their 
own character; in the restraints which 
their prejudices impose upon the efforts 
of pure and enlightened teachers; in 
their determined opposition to the prac- 
tical and improving part of Christianity ; 
in the baneful influence of that spurious 
and perverted orthodoxy which silences 
the remonstrances of conscience, and 
gives impunity to guilt. The business 
of a Christian minister is to hold up 
vice to infamy, and to denounce the 
thunders of heaven on the presumptu- 
ous. He should tremble to prostitute 
the honours of his Master’s name by 
employing it to charm the wicked into 
security, and to save them from the 
troublesome restrictions of duty. He 
should scorn to lower the dignity of the 
pulpit by converting it into a vehicle of 
licentious instruction; and for whom ? 
—to please the vilest and the meanest 
of mankind. He should impress upon 
their feelings that all the parade of ex- 
ternal ordinances will not save the pre- 
sumptuously wicked from the horrors — 
of their impending punishment. No; 
let them strive to get to heaven as they 
may by their punctualities and their 
externals—let them sit at the table of 
the Lord—let them drink of that wine 
which is the symbol of a Redeemer’s 
blood—all their sighs and tears and 
heavenly aspirations will avail them 
nothing while they retain the deceitful 
malignity of their characters. No; the 
supernatural charms they ascribe to the 
sacramental cup will no more avail than 
the spells of conjurors or the delusions 
of witchcraft. They may eat and drink 


land retire from the ordinance of the 


Supper with the deceitful assurance of 
the Almighty’s favour; but tremble, O 


‘hypocrites, you have drunk the poison 


of the soul; you have tasted the seeds 
of disease and death and everlasting 
destruction, &c. ; 

‘However much the Church of Scot- 
land may have suffered from the con- 
tempt and censure of its adversaries, 
there is one part of its constitution 
which will ever be admired by those 
who entertain a sincere and enlightened 
attachment to religion—that which en- 
sures the independent provision of its 
ministers. When a teacher of religion 


w.] 


derives his support from the sponta- 
neous liberality of that congregation 
over which he presides, the chief care 
of his heart is often to please and not to 
instruct them—to flatter the vices of the 
rich, because he has much to expect 
from their bounty—to flatter the vices 
of the poor, because they compensate by 
their numbers for the smallness of their 
individual contributions. What can be 
expected from the efforts of an instructor 
fettered as he is by such shameful and 
humiliating restraints? It is in vain to 
look to him as the dignified and intrepid 
champion of pure Christianity; it is vain 
to hope that through his manly and dis- 
interested efforts we shall behold the 
downfall of those corruptions which 
were grafted on the religion of Jesus in 
the dark ages of superstition. His in- 
structions will not dispel prejudiées but 
confirm them; will not correct the pre- 
vailing vices of sentiment but perpetu- 
ate the reign of ignorance and error, &c. 
On terminating the short career of 
my labours as your religious instructor, 
itis natural to inquire what has been 
accomplished. We refer the answer to 
your own hearts. It will be declared 
in your future conduct and conversa- 
tion. Much must have been imperfectly 
understood, much has been forgotten, 
much may have excited a momentary 
impression of goodness, but an impres- 
sion which has now been effaced amid 
the bustle and temptations of the world. 
Some we hope may have produced the 
fruits of righteousness and life everlast- 
ing. Have virtuous resolutions been 
confirmed? Has guilt been appalled 
in its career? Has the despair of the 
penitent been revived to confidence and 
joy? Has the gloom of affliction been 
brightened by the consoling prospects 
of immortality? Have the instructions 
ou have heard been useful in protect- 
ing the young and inexperienced from 
the dangers of an ensnaring example, 
and from the artifices ofan intriguing vil- 
‘ lany? Have they been useful in alarm- 


FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT CAVERS. 


403 


ing the careless indifference of parents 
to the moral and religious education of 
their offspring, and in teaching children 
to respect the authority of age? Have 
they been useful in humbling the pride 
of oppression, in exposing to contempt 
the infamy of falsehood, in detecting the 
baseness of calumny, or in impressing 
the terrors of vengeance on the deter- 
mined impenitence of guilt? Have 
they been useful in alarming the im- 
pious security of the wicked, in teach- 
ing them that all creeds and all ordi- 
nances are unable to shelter them from 
judgment, and that their only refuge 
is a sincere and effectual repentance ? 
Have they been useful in inspiring 
gratitude to Him who for our sakes 
lived a life of suffering and died a death 
of ignominy, whose morality has im- 
proved and adorned the face of society, 
and whose doctrines have ennobled the 
existence of man by unfolding to him 
the prospects of his immortal destiny ! 
These are triumphs more ennobling to 
the teacher of virtue than all the splen- 
dour of opulence, or than all the author- 
ity of power. They will support his 
footsteps amid the storms of this dreary 
and tempestuous world: they will cheer 
the gloomy desolation of age, and be a 
sweet remembrance in the hour of death. 

Let our last words be those of tender- 
ness and affection. Let our parting 
admonition be reserved as the lecacy of 
friendship. You are in a world of care 
and suffering—now labouring under the 
embarrassments of poverty, now afflicted 
with the disgrace and ingratitude of 
children, now pining in the infirmity of 
disease, and now oppressed by the inso- 
lence of power. Hold fast to religion. 
It will console you amid the ills and 
perplexities of life; it will be unto you 
as the shadow of a great rock ina weary 
land; it will bless you in the evening 
of your days, and conduct you to the 
glories of an eternal world, 


Auaust 28, 1802, 


ot 


404 FAST-DAY SERMON. (serum 


SERMON YV. 


Fast-Day Sermon.* 


‘“ Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war should rise 
against me, in this will I be confident. ”__PsatM xxvii. 3. 


Ir is not my object to enter into any | invader. You have nothing to expect ~ 
political discussion. The situation of | from the cannibal banditti of France: 
the country is, I believe, forced upon us| they have beasts of iron; they are hot 
by the necessity of circumstances. It/| from the plunder of other countries ; 
is a situation from which the most sin-| they are trained to carnage and desola- 
cere and anxious efforts of Government | tion; they have been taught to rejoice 
could not have relieved us. It is a sit-| in the outcry of massacre, and to fly 
uation which I ascribe to no miscon- | like bloodhounds to those towns and 
duct of Ministers—to no want of vigour | villages which their generals may have 
or of sincerity—to no injurious encroach- marked out for destruction. 
ment on our part on the rights and priv- | A year is scarcely elapsed since we 
ileges of other countries. It is a situa-| were called upon to commemorate an 
tion which I ascribe to the insolence of | event of such grand and obvious im- ~ 
a haughty and resentful ambition—of | portance—so eminently conducive to 
| the interests of millions that the friends 
of humanity rejoiced, and Christians 
sent up to the throne of mercy their 
acclamations of gratitude, and in the 
transports of a patriotic enthusiasm forgot 
the interests and the virulence of party. 
Such was the event we had then to 


an ambition which no sacrifice can ap- 
pease—of an ambition which grasps at | 
universal empire, and threatens to erect 
ts throne over the prostrated liberties 
of Europe. . At all events, it is a situa- 
tion to be deplored. Our own country 
may become the theatre of blood and 
of violence. The widows and orphans commemorate—not the delusive splen- 
of the slain may attest the numbers | dors of victory—not the phantom of na- 
who have fallen in the cause of patriot- | tional glory which serves to dazzle but 
ism. Think not that the voice of pity | not to exhilarate—not the glare and 
will soften the destructive career of the | triumph of conquest to amuse a giddy 
and unthinking multitude. It was 
_« [am indebted for the following sermon to David something igs substantial—more felt 
Gillespie, Esq., of Mountquhannie. His father was | in 1ts operation on the interests of the 
| 





one of the principal heritors in the parish of Kil- | : : : 

many, and many memorials survive at once of his | COUntry—more diffusive of its benefits 

early appreciation of the character and talents of his | through the walks of life and of busi- 

| o 

ness—more joyous to homes and to 
families. It was the re establishment 

this sermon without emotion. There were chords in | of peace among the nations. It was a 

the heart of its humblest hearer which it must have oe 


| 
. : ; 
caused thrillingly to vibrate. But Mr. Gillespie was | respite from those evils which had deso- 
| 
| 


minister, and of Dr. Chalmers’ grateful sense at the 
time, and affectionate remembrances ever afterward, 
of the kind attentions of his heritor. It could not 
have been possible for any one to have listened to 





one of the very few hearers of it who could estimate its t u region 
literary merits. Struck with these, he solicited a copy lated the nhappy Ey of Europe, 
of it—the only one now remaining, the original not | It was an end to the calamities of war, 


baving been preserved. It fixesitsown date; reference ’ | 

occurs in it to the Thanksgiving Day which, in the and to the restless anxiety of parents 

pees of = ems ran appointed to be and of friends, who implored the pro- 
observed in acknowledgement of the general peace se- ; a¢ 

cured by the treaty of Amiens. That treaty was signed tecting hand of Providence : over the 

in March 1802. The war broke out again in May 1803, | scenes of danger. In describing the 

miseries of war, shall I present to your 

imaginations scenes to which Britain 

i 


and Thursday, the 20th day of the October following, 
mainly because of that threat of invasion which Bona- | has long been a stranger ; conte Ne 


parte hung over England, and by which the heart of 
the whole island was conyulsed. It must have been 
2pon this occasion—only a few months, therefore, after 
Dr. Chalmers’ settlement at Kilmany—that this sermon 
was preached. 


was, by public appointment, observed throughout Scot- 
iand as a Fast-day, not only on account of the renewal 
of hostilities between this country and France, but 
armies met upon the awful work 
death ; men unknown to each other bent 
upon mutual destruction; the earth 


v.] 


bathed in the blood of thousands; and 
the cries of the wounded mingling with 
the shouts and the exultation of victory ? 
Shall we walk over the fields of the 
slain, and survey the victims of a law- 
less ambition? One whom the roman- 
tic visions of glory had allured from the 
house of his fathers; who had resigned 
all the comforts and endearments of 
home at the call of honour: his career is 
run; no more shall he gladden the 
hearts of his friends by the tidings of 
his welfare. Heedless of the event, they 
cherish the fond hope of his return; but 
he has breathed his last afar from the 
abode of his infancy, without a friend to 
soothe his departure, or to protect his 
expiring moments from the cold blasts 
of midnight. Whocan detail the pains 
and sufferings of a military life: now 
surrounded with the infection of an 
hospital; now pining in the famine of 
a siege; now tossed on the fury of the 
tempest; now languishing in the soli- 
tude of a prison? Who does not shud- 
der at the destructive progress of an 
invading army? Galled with difficul- 
ties, inflamed with resistance, aroused 
by the blood of their fellow-companions 
to fhe stern purpose of revenge. Nor 
age can disarm their fury, nor beauty 
arrest their violence. The sword spreads 
its desolation among the families; the 
land is filled with the houses of mourn- 
ing; the sounds of joy are for years ex- 
tinguished, and the seats of industry 
converted into the abodes of silence and 
grief. 

We are not yet relieved from these 
fearful apprehensions. The haughty 
and uncontrolable despot of France has 
not agreed to suspend his ambition, or 
to cease from troubling the repose of 
mankind. The nations of Europe hailed 
the approaching steps of peace with the 
acclamations of transport; but they 
have scarce had time to breathe from 
the toils and the fury of contention. 
The dire effusion of human blood has 
not been able to restrain the insolence 
of power—to control the vindictive fury 
of war—or to humble the lofty pride of 
ambition. But it isan ambition which 
shall not prevail. We trust in the 
unanimous resistance of a great and a 
high-spirited country. We trust in the 
integrity of our cause. We trust in the 


FAST-DAY SERMON. 


405 


valour of our countrymen: they will not 
fear to die in the animating cause of 
patriotism. We trust in the wisdom of 
our statesmen; they will blow the 
trumpet of war with the voice of irre- 
sistible eloquence. We trust in the skill 
of our commanders ; they will inspire 
us with confidence, and lead us on to 
emulation and to victory. | 

The best security that a government 
can enjoy is in the hearts and sentiments 
of the people. In this point of view our 
situation is not so alarming as it was 
at the commencement of the French 
Revolution. An unbridled licentious- 
ness of principle threatened the order 
and the security of social life. A per- 
verted system of morality went far to 
exterminate the reign of justice. <A 
contempt for the sacred institution of 
religion hardened the _ sensibilities 
against every amiable and tender im- 
pression. But experience has at length 
dispelled the magic of speculation. Its 
votaries have been forced, though with 
reluctance, to acknowledge that the de- 
lusions of fancy had led them astray, 
and that they erred in denouncing those 
virtues which have supported the pros- 
perity of ages. Even the enlightened 
philosophers of the modern schoo] look 
back on the extravagance of their former 
principles as the inexperience of enthu- 
siasm and folly, and are heard to revere 
the home-bred maxims of their fore- 
fathers, though unaccompanied with the 
charms of novelty, the splendour of elo- 
quence, or the magnificence of system. 

From the recollection of past scenes 
there is a lesson we would wish to im- 
press on all countries and on all people 
—a lesson recommended by the awful 
sanction of experience—a lesson written 
in the blood of thousands; the danger 
of heedless innovation, the fury of an 
irritated populace, though originally ex- 
cited by the best of motives. and direct- 
ed to the best of purposes. Whois there 
so seduced by the hypocrisy of profession 
as to look back with an approving eye 
on the whole progress of the French 
Revolution—on the disgraceful scenes 
of cruelty which were conducted under — 
the semblance of patriotism and public 
zeal—on that murderous spirit which 
actuated the rulers, and expended its 
fury on the innocent victims of injustice ? 


406 FAST-DAY 
Who is there so deluded by the modern 
systems of virtue as to suppress his ab- 
horrence at their flagrant violations of 
truth, at their wanton invasion of a 
harmless and unresisting people, at that 
refined insincerity of character which, 
amid the praises of liberty, and the ar- 
dent declamations of humanity and feel- 
ing. is directing all its efforts against 
the independence of an outraged coun- 
try? Alas! how much they have suf- 
fered, and how far they are behind us 
in all that conduces to the substantial 
prosperity of a nation: in stability of 
government, in the purity of its justice, 
in a quick and enlightened impression 
of the rights of man. in the energy of 
the public voice, and in contempt for 
oppression. In the pure administration 
of justice, in the progress of sentiment 
and character. in the individual reforma- 
tion of a people, we discover a more sub- 
stantial security against the infringe- 
ments of rights, than in all the parade 
of constitutions. and in all the mockery 
of forms. Why fight for a republic— 
since the insolence of power will ever be 
able to establish the reign of despotism 
over a timid and an ignorant people. 
and all the authority of laws will be 
unable to restrain it. Why rejoice in 
the blood of kings—since a watchful 
and enlightened public will ever restrain 
the abuses of power, though emblazoned 
in all the splendour of titles. and sup- 
ported by all the jurisprudence of anti- 
quity. Let us never despair of the future 
improvement of mankind; let us never 
relax in our efforts to hasten the reign 
of perfection. But let us direct these 
efforts aright; not by instruments of 
violence, not by arousing the fury of a 
vindictive and as yet unenlightened 
populace not by infringing on the sacred 
rights of property. not by trampling on 
the distinctions of rank. There is a 
certain point in the progress of national 
improvement which renders the degra- 
dation of a country impossible, and ac- 
_ celerates ull its future advances in light | 
and in liberty. That point we seem to 
have gained. It consists in the perfec- 
tion of the national character—a _perfec- 
tion which renders it respectable in the 
eye of the rulers and gives an energy 
to its opinions sufficient to resist every 
flagrant violation of justice or freedom. 


SERMON [SERM. 
Let us never despair of the unfailing 
efficacy of knowledge in conducting to 
the proudest summits of national felicity. 
Let every improvement be effected, not 
by the tumults of sedition or the agita- 
tions of party. but by the silent and pro- 
gressive labours of instruction. Let us 
direct our efforts to the improvement of 
individual character, as the most solid 
and substantial foundation of public 
prosperity, to remove those prejudices 
in which ignorance involes the under- 
standing. to dispel those unhappy and 
malignant impressions which separate 
the different orders of the community, 
and above all. to diffuse the admiration 
of virtue by the charms of our private 
example. These will secure to the 
Government of Britain the obedience of 
a free and a willing people, who know 
how to yield a ready acquiescence in the 
restrictions ofa just and useful authority, 
and to sacrifice the petty competitions 
of interest and opinion to that unanimity 
which is the boast and protection of a 
country. 

The situation of the country calls. 
aloud for the unanimity of its inhabit- 
ants. Weare not called upon to defend 
any particular order of men. We are 
not called upon to defend the principles 
and views of any party. We are not 
called upon to defend the possessions of 
the wealthy, or the rank of the noble. 
It is to defend ourselves. It is to de- 
fend the country from massacre: it is te 
defend it from the insolence of a brutal 
and unfeeling soldiery. let it not be 
said that this is the cause of the great 
or the wealthy. That cottage which 
shelters you from the storms of winter, 
should be as dear to you as the stately 
palace is to the chieftain who resides in 
it. That little garden which you cul- 
tivate for the use of your family should 
be as dear to you as the acres of an ex- 
tensive domain are to its lordly propri- 
etor. I have undergone several of the 
varieties of fortune. From the depend- 
ence of a child I have arrived through 
intermediate steps of preferment to a 
comfortable sufficiency of circumstan- 
ces. When occupying the humbler sit- 
uations of life, I felt the same interest 
in defense of the country that I do at 
present, the same attachment to the 
cause of civil and religious security, 


vd] 


the same contempt for oppression. the 
same stubborn and unbroken spirit of 
independence, the same determined op- 
position both to domestic tyranny and 
to the ignominy of a foreign yoke. 
True, I had little to lose, but that little 
was all that belonged to me. It sup- 
plied all the stores of my enjoyment. 
It filled up the measure of my humble 
and unambitious desires; and had it 
fallen a sacrifice to the rapacity of an 
invading army, it would have afflicted 
me with equal severity as the destruc- 
tion of the house which I now occupy, 
of the land which I now cultivate, of 
the emoluments of the office which I 
now exercise—an office to the duties of 
which the remainder of my days may 
probably be consecrated. Let it not be 
said that you have no interest in the 
defence of the country. You may live 
in a straw-built shed, and have an 
equal interest with him who triumphs 
in all the magnificence of wealth, and 
is invested with the proudest honors 
of nobility. You may have children 
whose infancy you have protected, and 
to whose manhood you look forward as 
the support and consolation of your de- 
clming years. You may have parents 
whose age requires your protection ; for 
even age will not soften the cruelty of 
your relentless enemies. 

Let it not be said that discussions 
like these are a prostitution of the dig- 
nity of the pulpit, or an impertinent de- 
viation from our official character, to 
lend the authority of our profession to 
the aid of party, or to employ it in 
strengthening the yoke of despotism 
over an enslaved and persecuted people. 
I hope in God there is not a man 
among us who would not willingly re- 
nounce the smiles of the great and the 
patronage of power, rather than concur 
in supporting the measures of an arbi- 
trary and oppressive government. We 
come forward not in the spirit of an ac- 
commodating policy. We come for- 
ward because it is the dictate of our 
own hearts, and the dictate of our own 
opinions. We come forward because 
we conceive it to be the duty of every 
good man in the present critical and 
alarming circumstances of the country. 
We come forward because it is the 
cause of patriotism. It is the cause of 


FAST-DAY SERMON. 


407 


civil and religious liberty. It is the 
cause of that Christianity that has been 
transmitted to us from our ancestors, 
and that we have been taught from our 
infancy to cherish and revere. Some 
of you may have heard of Lavater; he 
was a clergyman of the once free and 
independent country of Switzerland. 
He was one of the most eminent literary 
characters of his age. He had a mind 
formed for the profoundest investiga- 
tions of science, and a heart animated 
by that mild and generous benevolence 
which the faith of Christianity inspires. 
He was at first a keen supporter of the 
French Revolution; he defended it by 
his writings, he hailed it as the com- 
mencement of a grand era—when lib- 
erty, and science, and virtue would ex- 
pand their triumphs and erect an omni- 
potent empire. But the picture was 
soon changed. <A few years had scarce- 
ly elapsed when he saw through the 
magic that had bewitched him. His 
own country was invaded by the French 
troops, and fell a prey to the most un- 
exampled atrocities. In his retreat he 
wrote a pamphlet which I have myself 
seen.* He here discovers all the ardor 
of his patriotic mind, in the exclama- 
tions of disappointed benevolence, and 
in the afflicting regrets with which he 
contemplates the ruin of his country- 
men. 

Let us not tremble at the dangers 
which surround us. Let us not be 
afraid though an enemy should encamp 
against us. What, in the name of 
Ifeaven !—is it for us to resign our lives 
and our liberties to the insolence of law- 
less ambition! Is it for us to surren- 
der those sacred privileges which were 
cemented by the blood of our ancestors ! 
The pulse of a Briton beats high in the 
cause of independence. A contempt 
for oppression is the proudest sentiment 
of his heart. He has sucked it from 
his infancy; it glows even in the 
humblest retreats of poverty; it en- 
nobles the lowest retirements of life. 
Amid the shocks of misfortune he sus- 
tains the dignity of an unbroken spirit ; 
he rejoices in his conscious importance, 





* The pamphlet here alluded to is in all likelihood 
the one entitled “* Remonstrance addressed to the Ex- 
ecutive Directory of the French Republic against the 
Invasion of Switzerland. By John Caspar Lavater 
London, 1798,” 


408 FAST-DAY 
not as a favourite of fortune, not as the 
lordling of an extensive domain who ex- 
ercises the reign of caprice over a tribe of 
dependents, not as the child of hereditary 
grandeur who can appeal to the honours 
of a remote and illustrious ancestry—he 
rejoices in his importance as a man—as 
a man whose rights are revered by the 
laws of his country, and whose virtues 
will be hailed by the voice of an ap- 
plauding public. In a country such as 
this we have nothing to fear from the 
msolence of power; for it must submit 
to the severity of an impartial justice. 
In a country such as this we have no- 
thing to fear from the corruption of our 
tribunals ; for they feel that they are 
under the control of public opinion, and 
that all the splendour of official import- 
ance is unable to protect their injustice 
from the frown of a generous and en- 
lightened people. In a country suchas 
this we have nothing to fear from the 
efforts of sedition; for our common in- 
terests engage us to oppose it, and to con- 
trol the violence of its deluded votaries. 
In a country such as this we have no- 
thing to fear from the frenzy of revolu- 
tionary violence; for in the experience 
of our present blessings the unanimous 
sense of the people would rise to resist 
it. Ina country such as this we have 
nothing to fear from the oppressions of 
an arbitrary government; for our rulers 
have learned to respect the energy of 
the public voice, and feel that their best 
security is in the hearts of their sub- 
jects. And shall such a country turn 
pale at the approach of an invader? 
Shall its patriotism wither and die in 
the hour of danger? Will it surrender 
that venerable system of law that has 
been created by the wisdom of ages? 
Will it surrender that throne which has 
been adorned by the private virtues of 
him who holds it? Will it surrender 
that Christianity which has been trans- 
mitted to us from our ancestors, and 
which we have been taught from our 
infancy to cherish and revere? Will it 
surrender those fields which the indus- 
try of its inhabitants has enriched with 
the fairest stores of cultivation? Will 
it surrender its towns and villages to 
destruction? Will it surrender its in- 
habitants to massacre? Will it surren- 
der its homes to the insolence of a bru- 


SERMON. [SERM. 
tal and unfeeling soldiery? No. Let 
the invader attempt it when he may, he 
will attempt it to his destruction. The 
pride of an indignant country will rise 
to overthrow the purposes of his am- 
bition, and the splendour of his past 
victories will be tarnished in the dis- 
grace that awaits him. 

If true to ourselves we have nothing 
to fear from the insulting menaces of 
France. Andcan I for a moment cher- 
ish the disgraceful supposition—can I 
for a moment suppose that there is a 
man among us, who would suffer his 
mind to be enfeebled by the cowardly 
apprehensions of danger? Can I fora 
moment suppose that there is a man 
among us who, in the present alarming 
circumstances, would prove false to the 
cause of his country? I would sooner 
open my door to the savage and mur- 
derous banditti of France, than admit 
such a man into my confidence. Against 
an open enemy I can guard myself; he 
warns me of my danger; he throws me 
into a posture of defence, and I bid de- 
fiance to his rage. But the case is dif- 
ferent with these insidious and design- 
ing men who lurk in the bosom of the 
country. They are snakes in the grass. 
They are asps of malignity whom we 
cherish in our bosoms. ‘They are capa- 
ble of violating the most sacred oaths, 
and betraying the best of friendships. 
Under the -mask of patriotism they 
meditate their designs of treachery ; 
and that country which, if firm and 
united, would bid defiance to the com- 
bined hostility of Europe, is delivered up 
a prey to all the horrors of insurrection. 
But I am satisfied that no such spirit 
exists in our neighbourhood. I am 
satisfied that the breast of every man 
who now hears me is animated by a 
feeling of the purest patriotism—that 
the breast of every man who now hears 
me feels the proudest disdain that 
France, or any power under heaven, 
should insult our independence, and 
threaten to invade the peace of our 
dwellings. 

May that day in which Bonaparte 
ascends the throne of Britain be the 
last of my existence; may I be the 
first to ascend the scaffold he erects to 
extinguish the worth and spirit of the 
country ; may my blood mingle with 


vi] 


the blood of patriots; and may I die at | 
the foot of that altar on which British 
independence is to be the victim. The 
future year is big with wonders. It_ 
may involve us in all the horrors of a 


desolating war. It may decide the 


COURTEOUSNESS. 


409 


complexion of the civilized world. It 
may decide the future tranquility of 
ages. It may give an awful lesson to 
ambition ; and teach the nations of Ku- 
rope what it is to invade the shores of 
a great and a high-spirited country. 








SERMON VIL. 


Courteousness.* 


“ Be courteous.”—1l PETER iii. 8. 


CourTeousness is the same with what 
in common language would be called 
eivility of manners; but as the mind is 
often a slave to the imposition of words, 
it is necessary to distinguish it from 
something else, which, though very like 
it in sound, is very different from it in 
sense and in significancy. Let it be 
distinctly understood, then, that to be 
courteous is one thing, and to be courtly 
is another. The one refers to the dis- 
position—the other to the external be- 
haviour. The one isa virtue—the other 
isanaccomplishment. The one is grace 
of character: it resides in the soul, and 
consists in the benevolence of an amia- 
ble temper. he other is grace of man- 
ner: it may be seen in the outward ap- 
pearance, and consists in the elegance 
of a fashionable exterior. A man may 


* During the two years which elapsed from the time 
at which the following discourse was written, (July 2, 
1808) till the period of that great revolution in his relig- 
ious sentiments which took place in the years 1810 and 
1811, this sermon was very frequently preached by, and 
was aspecial favorite of, its author. He retained, in- 
deed, a strong partiality for it to the last, and delighted 
to tell of the incident to which it owed its birth. 
Walking on one of the public roads in Kilmany, he had 
come in sight of a family, the members of which were 
thus distributed. A few paces in advance—unbur- 
dened, his hands thrust lazily into his pockets, in his 
slouching gait having all the air of aman very much at 
his ease—strode on the husband. Behind—bent down, 
“a bairn in one hand, and a bundle in the other”’—the 
wearied wife and mother was straggling to keep pace 
with him. A perfect hurricane of indignation was 
awakened in the breast of Dr. Chalmers, when, on over- 
taking the group, he heard the man vehemently curse 
back at his wife as he ordered her to “come along.” 
Dr. Chalmers never told how that hurricane discharged 
itself, or in what terms he administered the well-mer- 

‘ited rebuke. Thought, however, as well as emotion, 
was excited: in contrast with the scene of rude bar- 
barity he had witnessed, the pleasures and benefits of 
courteousness arose in vivid colouring before his eye. 
He went home—sat down to write. The fruit of that 
forenoon’s incident, and that evening’s study is given 
in the discourse which follows. 


52 


be courteous without being courtly. To 
learn the virtue of the text, it is not nec- 
essary to go to court, or to be practiced 
in the ceremonies of fine and polished 
society. Courteousness is the virtue of 
all ranks: it may be seen in the cottage 
as well as in the palace; in the artifi- 
cer’s shop as well as in the gay and 
fashionable assembly ; in the awkward- 
ness of a homely and untutored peasant, 
as well as in the refined condescension 
of a prince who wakens rapture in every 
heart, and spreads fascination and joy 
around his circle of delighted visitors. 
It is of importance not to confound what 
is so essentially different. A man may 
have civility without a particle of ele- 
gance, and a man may have elegance 
without a particle of civility. There is 
a set of people whom I can not bear 
the pinks of fashionable propriety— 
whose every word is precise, and whose 
every movement is unexceptionable ; 
but who, though versed in all the cate- 
gories of polite behaviour, have not a 
particle of soul or of cordiality about 
them. We allow that their manners 
may be abundantly correct. There 
may be elegance in every gesture, and 
gracefulness in every position; not a 
smile out of place, and not a step that 
would not bear the measurement of the 
severest scrutiny. ‘This is all very fine ; 
but what I want is the heart and the 
gayety of social intercourse—the frank- 
ness that spreads ease and animation 
around it—the eye that speaks affability 
to all, that chases timidity from every 
bosom, and tells every man in the com- 
pany to be confident and happy. This 





410 


is what I conceive to be the virtue of 
the text, and ~ot the sickening formality 
of those who walk by rule, and would 
reduce the whole of human life to a wire- 
bound system of misery and constraint. 

Civility has been called one of the 
lesser virtues of the social character. 
It does not stand so high in the order 
of social duty as virtue or humanity. 
It may be the same in principle, but it 
is different in the display. It may not 
be so essential to the constitution of so- 
ciety, but it comprises a thousand en- 
gaging attentions which go far to keep 
society together, and confer an exqui- 
site charm on the walks of social inter- 
course. 

It may be difficult to assign a precise 
limit between civility and the other vir- 
tues of the social character. It is say- 
ing too much to say that to be civil is 
to lay yourself out for the accommoda- 
tion of aneighbour. You accommodate 
the poor with money, yet nobody would 
say that this was doing a piece of civil- 
ity; it is dignified with the higher ap- 
pellation of humanity. You aecommo- 
date another when you lend your name 
to support the tottering credit of an ac- 
quaintance; yet nobody will say that 
it is civil, but that it is generous and 
beneficent. Civility, in fact, is confined 
to those lesser attentions which require 
no material sacrifice of time, or money, 
or interest; those little offices of kind- 
ness which can be discharged without 
loss and without trouble, which call for 
no painful exertion, and bring no sensi- 
ble inconvenience along with them. To 
point the road to an inquiring traveler ; 
to step forward and relieve the ignorance 
or the embarrassment of a stranger; to 
make soothing inquiries after the sick- 
ness which reigns in an adjoining fam- 
ily; to maintain a series of respectful 
attentions, and to carry the expression 
of kindness in your look and tone and 
general conversation—these are so many 
obvious examples of civility—a virtue in 
the observance of which you may be 
said to incur no fatigue, to surrender no 
interest, and to submit to no sacrifice. 
To lend money in order to relieve the 
embarrassments of an unfortunate fam- 
ily is an example rather of humanity ; 
for in this act of kindness you risk a 
material interest—the money may never 





COURTEOUSNESS. 


ene ee sr rn le som Se i ieee einen Pn tare etapa caret a a eA aii ED ota Nice Dad te ts Tomcat aiicgee ae 


[SERM. 


be restored, and you secretly commit it 
to some future exercise of generosity to 
cancel the obligation. To lend books, 
again, in order to amuse the solitude of 
a convalescent neighbour, is an example 
of civility; for in this act of kindness 
you endanger no material interest, you 
apprehend no loss, no inconvenience— 
you feel confident that the books wilf be 
restored, and you have the satisfaction 
of spreading enjoyment around you at 
an expense that is scarcely felt, and need 
never be complained of. You will ob- 
serve, then, that civility approaches to 
the higher exercises of generosity by a 
limit which it is almost impossible to 
define with precision. Both of them 
point to a neighbour’s happiness and a 
neighbour’s accommodation ; but in the 
one case you have to make a greater 
sacrifice of your own personal ease or 
personal advantage. Both of them have 
their foundation in a principle of kind- 
ness ; but to be generous you must make 
some important sacrifice—to be civil the 
sacrifice must be so small as to encroach 
upon no material convenience, and to 
interfere with no serious pursuit of busi- 
ness or interest. 

The advantages of civility may be re- 
ferred to two general heads—l. The 
happiness which the very exercise of 
this virtue communicates to him who 
practices it; and, 2. The happiness 
which it communicates to those who 
are the objects of it. ‘First, then, as to 
the happiness which springs from the 
exercise of this virtue, I appeal to the 
experience of every generous bosom, if 
the exercise of kindness does not leave 
a sweet satisfaction behind it; and if it 
has never felt that harmony which 
reigns in the soul after it indulges in a 
benevolent affection. I appeal to the- 
experience of every generous bosom, if. 
it is not more pleasant to return a civil 
answer to the inquiries of a traveler than 
to triumph in his helplessness, or to re- 
joice in his ignorance and his embar- 
rassment. I appeal to the experience 
of every generous bosom if it is not 
more pleasant to dissipate the awkward- 
ness of an inferior by the affability of 
our manners than to humble him into 
timidity, or to throw him at a mortify- 
ing distance by the hauteur and stiff- 
ness of our deportment. The benevo- 


vt] 


lent Author of our frames has annexed 
a joy to every virtuous exercise of the 
heart; there isa pleasure accompanying 
the cordiality of good wishes and benev- 
olent intentions. It may be difficult to 
describe the feeling; it is perhaps too 
simple to be taken to pieces and made 
the subject of a formal explanation ; 
but every child of nature can lend his 
testimony to the reality of its existence. 
There is always a pleasure accompany- 
ing the exercise of power, and the pleas- 
ure is heightened to a tenfold degree 
when this power is directed to the pur- 
poses of beneficence. Now there is not 
aman among us who is not in some de- 
gree invested with such a power. Ev- 
ery Man among us has the power of 
diffusing satisfaction around him by the 
civility of his manners; he has it in his 
power to look with a brother’s eye, and 
to eladden every bosom by the engaging 
affability of his deportment. I am not 
speaking of the happiness he communi- 
cates to others; I speak of the happi- 
ness he is providing for himself; I am 
telling him of the satisfaction of his own 
feelings, and of the joy that springs in 
the solitude of his own bosom when it 
is tuned to the purposes of kindness. 
Perhaps civility is more allied with a 
liberal and expanded principle of hu- 
manity than any other virtue of the 
social character. You may be just, but 
this justice is confined to the few indi- 
viduals with whom you are connected in 
the walks of business; you may be gen- 
erous, but this generosity is confined to 
the particular cases of distress which 
come under your observation ; you may 
be patriotic, but this patriotism is con- 
fined to the narrow limits of the country 
in which you were born. The virtue 
of civility knows no exceptions. It em- 
braces all; it asks no questions; nor 
does it hesitate and delay till it has as- 
certained its object. Civility is a gen- 
eral habit of kindness; it requires no 
particular claim upon its attentions. 
Knough for it that the object before you 
isa man. He may be an entire stran- 
ger; but this it conceives to be an addi- 
tional call upon its exercise. The hurry 
of traveling supplies you with a thou- 
sand examples of such rapid intercourse, 
where you may never meet again till 
you meet in heaven, but where each has 


COURTEOUSNESS. 


41} 


made the other happy by the inter: 
change of obliging expressions, and an 
hour spent in the luxury of kindness. 
Now it is this circumstance which gives 
the virtue of civility such an exalted 
place in my estimation—the enlarge- 
ment of that principle upon which it is 
founded, and the grandeur of that thea- 
tre in which it expatiates. The princi- 
ple is universal good will, and the thea- 
tre is the world. There is something 
generous and expanding in the principle. 
It has no petty consideration to restrain 
it in its exercise; it calls for no claim, 
no terms of admittance; it is not your 
family or your neighbourhood that in- 
troduces you to its attentions. Hnough 
for it that you belong to the species— 
that you are a brother of the same na- 
ture—that you have a bosom which can 
be soothed by the accents of kindness, 
and a heart that feels the attentions of 
another to be gracious. Now the point 
which I am at present insisting upon is, 
that the exercise of such a principle con- 
fers happiness upon its possessor—that 
it carries along with it a series of the 
most animating and delightful sensa- 
tions—that the tone of mind which ac- 
companies the exercise of kindness is in 
the highest degree favourable to enjoy- 
ment—that good will is a pleasurable 
feeling—and that cheerfulness is ever 
the inheritance of him who moves along 
with his affections flying before him; 
with every feeling tuned to benevolence, 
and every wish directed to the happiness 
of others. 

Iam not calling upon you to make 
any romantic sacrifice, to give your 
goods to feed the poor, or to surrender a 
single portion of that time which interest 
tells you should be directed to the en- 
gagements of business. I am only call- 
ing upon you to cultivate that habitual 
kindness of spirit which discharges it- 
self in the thousand little attentions of 
civility. I only call upon you to enter 
with cheerfulness into these minuter 
offices of kindness which come in your 
way, and can be performed without 
trouble and without inconvenience. I 
only call upon you to come forward with 
the simple offering of kind looks and 
obliging expressions—to chase away the 
embarrassments of the awkward by the 
affability of your manners—and to de 


412 


light the hearts of all around you by the 
consciousness that they possess your 
respect and tenderness. I protest that 
however difficult to describe the sensa- 
tion, there is something in the feeling of 
a hearty good will to another’s happi- 
ness which is in the highest degree ani- 
mating and delightful—that it blesses 
him who gives as well as him who re- 
ceives it—that it is a spring of the most 
genial satisfaction to all who cherish it 
—and that it is always sure to throw 
even into the solitude of a man’s bosom 
the sunshine of tranquillity and cheer- 
fulness. What a delightful contrast to 
those melancholy beings who have no 
heart—who never tasted the joys of cor- 
diality, whose bosoms never warmed to 
the animating spectacle of another’s bliss 
and another’s gayety, who hedge them- 
selves round with a set of the most freez- 
ing and repulsive ceremonies, who suffer 
none to approach them with confidence, 
who roll themselves up in their own sol- 
itary grandeur, and give to pride and to 
solemnity those hours which should have 
been spent in the interchange of agree- 
able manners and the luxury of social 
affections. I know not whether to hate 
or to pity them; but certain it is that 
they debar themselves from the choicest 
of all luxuries, and a luxury which no 
good mind would be willing to forego. 
Certain it is that the luxury of social 
affections is better than the parade and 
solemnity of forms—and that the vanity 
of their own importance is but a wretched 
atonement for the loss of those pleasures 
which spring from the exercise of kind- 
ness, and a heart that loves to indulge 
in another's joy. 

In addition to the pleasure which 
springs from the very exercise of civility, 
there are other advantages which [I for- 
bear particularly to insist upon. I know 
nothing that is more calculated than a 
kind and conciliating manner to propi- 
tiate friends and secure the good wishes 
of allaround you. It is the most popu- 
lar of all virtues. It will go further to 
gain the affections of men than the 
most splendid deeds of beneficence. By 
relieving my wants you make me feel 
the load of an obligation; I blush at 
the humility of my own dependence, 
and am thrown to a most mortifying 
distance from that superior being whose 


COURTEOUSNESS. 


[SERM. 


beneficence sustains me. An act of 
charity :s an offering not to me but to 
my wants; an act of civility carries 
along with it a more immediate homage 
to myself. Iam the object of charity 
because I need it; but I am the object 
of civility, not because I need it, but be- 
cause [am thought to deserve it. ‘There 
is on this account a soothing flattery in 
the attentions of civility that is far more 
grateful to the bosom of man than any 
other act or any other form of kindness 
which you choose to specify. It is not 
the favour which civility confers. The 
favour may of itself be a mere nothing— 
some obliging expression, or some sooth- 
ing and attentive inquiry. It is the 
respect and tenderness which an act of | 
civility implies; it is the delightful con- 
sciousness that I possess the sympathy 
of another’s bosom. These are the feel- 
ings which give such a delicate charm 
to the exercises of civility, and bestow 
upon it a power over the affections of 
men which all the patronage of the 
great and all the charities of opulence 
can never equal. In addition to all this, 
let me also mention that the exercise of 
civility costs you nothing. It calls for no 
sacrifice of time, or money, or interest. 
There is nothing to fatigue or to con- 
sume you in this delightful exercise. It 
is the spontaneous flow of good affec- 
tions, and consists in those little offices 
of kindness which can be discharged 
without trouble, and leave no loss or in- 
convenience behind them. 

I now proceed to the second head of 
discourse, where I am to examine the 
happiness which civility confers upon 
those who are the objects of it. It is 
like the dew which droppeth upon the 
grass beneath. It blesses him who 
gives and him who receives it. The 
pleasure which we feel in receiving a 
kindness depends upon two causes: there 
is, first, the benefit conferred, and there 
is, secondly, the agreeable feeling which 
springs in every bosom from its being 
the object of another’s benevolence. In 
relieving the wretchedness of extreme 
poverty, the first is the predominant 
cause of the pleasure which we commu- 
nicate. We have conferred an important 
benefit. We have appeased hunger, or 
given shelter to the naked and defence- 
less. In discharging an office of civility, 


vi] 
again, the second is the predominant 
cause of the pleasure which we commu- 
nicate. The benefit conferred may in 
itself have been of no consequence—a 
kind look or a respectful attention. The 
benefit may not be of such a kind as to 
better our circumstances, or bring along 
with it any other palpable advantage ; 
but still there is a charm in the atten- 
tions of civility that is altogether inde- 
pendent of the benefit conferred. This 
charm lies in the consciousness of being 
the object of another’s kindness, and in 
being supported by the cordiality of an- 
other’s attentions. It is a very gross 
way of calculating the matter to esti- 
mate the enjoyment which springs from 
benevolence by the magnitude of the 
gift which it confers. Civility presents 
no gift, but it comes forward with a far 
more delightful offering—the offering of 
agreeable attentions, and a manner ex- 
pressive of cordiality and friendship. I 
maintain that the exercise of this virtue 
is more conducive to the happiness of 
society than the most liberal and expen- 
sive charities. What is it that perpetu- 
ates the harmony and friendship of a 
neighbourhood? It is the interchange 
of respectful attentions, and the little 
endearing expressions of civility. What 
is it that creates quarrels, and fills the 
whole village with the uproar of contro- 
versy? It may sometimes be the cru- 
elty of injustice, but it is far oftener the 
insolence of disdain, the sullenness of 
an unaccommodating manner, the mor- 
tifying negligence of those who count 
you unworthy of their attentions. What 
is it that throws a sunshine into the 
habitations of the wretched? Your 
charity relieves, but your civility revives 
them ; it restores them to the dignity of 
the species, and makes them forget the 
cruelty of those humiliations which mis- 
fortune has entailed upon them. The 
meal which comes from the great man’s 
house sustains them, and they try to be 
grateful for it; but gratitude comes at 
will, when they receive their forenoon 
visit from the loveliest of human beings, 
whose delight is in the dwellings of the 
poor, who loves to cheer them by her 
attentions, and to bless by the affability 
of her manners those humble cottages 
which surround the princely mansion of 
her father. 


COURTEOUSNESS., 


Yes, there is something in! 


413 


the attentions of civility that is calcu- 
lated to warm and to exhilarate the hu- 
man bosom. I am not speaking of a 
gift or of a benefit; but there is some- 
thing in the very sense of another’s 
kindness that carries along with it the 
most gracious of enjoyments. Now the 
kindness of charity may hurt or may 
mortify its object; but the kindness of 
civility has no alloy. It carries along 
with it all the power and insinuation of 
the most delicate flattery. It is a clear 
and unmixed feeling, altogether purified 
from the grossness of obligation, and 
from those galling reflections which are 
ever sure to accompany a sense of de- 
pendence. If civility can do so much, 
why, in the name of tenderness, should 
we withhold it? why refuse so simple 
an offering at the shrine of humanity ? 
why retire to the solitude of our own 
importance, and disdain to mingle in 
kindness with those who are brethren 
of the same nature and children of the 
same beneficent Creator? We all sprung 
from heaven. and to heaven we are all 
pointing. Why should we cast out by 
the way? why deny so easy a sacrifice 
as the sacrifice of civility? why refuse 
so simple an offering as the offering of 
agreeable manners, and a countenance 
lightened up by the smiles of brother- 
hood and affection? what is it that in- 
duces you to withhold so easy an offer- 
ing ?—are you afraid of committing your 
dignity by excessive condescension? It 
is very true that the kindness of a weak 
man often exposes him to ridicule. But 
I do not suppose you to be weak. What 
I want at present is to communicate to 
your feelings the temper of benevolence 
—and I take it for granted that you 
have sense enough to direct you in the 
exercise of this principle. There is cer- 
tainly a way of descending to the exer- 
cises of civility, and in such a manner 
as to save your dignity and to sustain 
the importance of your character. A 
man, if he is weak, will render himself 
ridiculous in any direction, whether it 
be on the side of excessive kindness or - 
excessive anxiety to keep up his impor- 
tance. A man may render himself ri- 
diculous by his excessive humility, and 
he may render himself as ridiculous by 
the excessive grandeur and solemnity of 
his manners. I know not whether to 


414 


laugh or to cry when I witness those 
ridiculous beings whose great effort and 
anxiety in this world is to keep up their 
dignity ; who are so lofty and so inac- 
cessible; who must not be touched; 
-who shelter themselves under the de- 
fence of a stately ceremonial; and whose 
whole behaviour is only calculated to 
overpower the diffident, or cause those 
who have a sufficient degree of nerve 
and firmness to be indifferent about 
them. Let me never hear, then, the ar- 
gument of ridicule employed to discour- 
age the exercises of a kind and conde- 
scending civility. If people wish for 
amusement, I would direct them to the 
opposite extreme of character, and assure 
them that they will there meet with far 
better game for the exercise of ridicule. 
No; I would pity the weakness of those 
who were victims to an amiable but 


misguided benevolence of temper, while | 
is at least able to delight me by his 


I would let out the full cry of ridicule 
against the wretched vanity of him who 


marches solemnly along, and thinks that | 
‘from the lowest and most contemptible 


scatter awe and embarrassment around of men, is fit to ruffle the tranquillity 


by the stateliness of his manners he is to 


him. 


COURTEOUSNESS. 





[SERM. 


and beggary and corruption. There is 
no such danger attending the exercise 
of civility. It draws no dependence 
along with it; it gleddens the heart 
without corrupting it. Instead of de- 
orading, it has rather the effect to cheer 
and elevate and sustain the character. 
I want not the charity of my neighbour 
so long as I can rely on the native in- 
dependence of my own exertions; but 
I would like at all times to be supported 
by his friendship, to be delighted by the 
civility of his manners, and to rejoice in 
the maintenance of a soothing and agree- 
able fellowship. 

I also observe that the power of dif- 
fusing happiness is not the exclusive in- 
heritance of the rich. All are capable 
of it. The poorest of men can cheer me 
by his affection, or distress me by his 
hatred and contempt. He may not be 
able to relieve me by his wealth, but he 


civility. Every man is the dependent 
of another. <A piece of neglect, even 


of my happiness; and a civil attention, 


I may observe, that less evil results even from the humblest of our kind, 


from the exercise of civility than any 
other virtue of the social] character. 
is in the power of charity to corrupt its 
object; it may tempt him to indolence; 
it may lead him to renounce all depend- 
ence upon himself; it may nourish the 
meanness and depravity of his charac- 
ter; it may lead him to hate exertion, 
and to resign without asigh the dignity 
of independence. It could be easily 
proved that if charity were carried to its 
utmost extent, it would unhinge the 
constitution of society. It would expel 
from the land the blessings of industry. 
Every man would repose on the benefi- 
cence of another. Every incitement to 
diligence would be destroyed. The 
evils of poverty would multiply to such 
an extent as to be beyond the power 
even of the most unbounded charity to 
redress them ; and instead of an elys1um 
of love and of plenty, the country would 
present the nauseating spectacle of sloth 


It. 
hear, then, that the poor have nothing 


carries a most gracious and exhilarating 
influence along with it. Let me never 


in their power. They have it in their 
power to give or to withhold civility of 
manners. They have it in their power 
to give or to withhold friendly atten- 
tions. They have it in their power to 
give or to withhold kind and obliging 
expressions. They have it in their 
power to give or to withhold the smiles 
of affection and the sincerity of a tender 
attachment. Let not these humble of- 
ferings of poverty be disregarded. The 
man of sentiment knows how to value 
them: he prizes them as the best deeds 
of beneficence. They lighten the weary 
anxieties of this world, and carry him 
on with a cheerful heart to the ena of 
his journey. 


JuLy 2, 1808, 


— 


FAST-DAY DISCOURSE, 


415 


SERMON VII. 


Fast-Day Discourse.* 


‘ The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever 


he will.”—Proverss xxi. 1. 


Ir is consolatory to think that this 
earthly scene, in spite of the misery and 
apparent confusion which prevail in it, 
is under the absolute control of infinite 
wisdom—that the God who sitteth above 
and reigns in heaven, also presides over 
the destinies of this lower world—that 
every event in history is of His appoint- 
ment—that every occurrence in_ the 
course of human affairs is in the order 
of His providence—that He reigns in 
the heart of man, and can control all its 
purposes—that the violence of human 
ambition is only an instrument which 
He employs, to carry on His govern- 
ment and accomplish the purposes of 
His wisdom. When we see combined 
in the same person the genius of an 
angel and the malignity of a tyrant— 
when we see a power that no human 
energy can resist, and this power di- 
rected to the slavery and degradation 
of the species—when we see strewed 
around his throne the mangled liberties 
of a generous and intrepid people—when 
_we follow him in the brilliant career of 
his victories, and in the history of his 
guilty triumphs anticipate the new mis- 
eries which his ambition is to bring upon 
the world, it certainly brightens up the 
dreariness that lies before us when we 
think that he is only an instrument in 
the hand of the Almighty—that it is 
God that worketh in him to will and to 
do—that the heart of man is in the 
Lord’s hand as the rivers of water, and 
that He turneth it wheresoever He will. 





* In February, 1809, shortly after the honourable but 
disastrous battle of Corunna, a national fast was kept— 
on the day of the observance of which the following ser- 
mon was delivered. In the fast-day sermon of 1803, 
the reader can scarcely fail to have been struck with 
the absence, not merely of any allusion to the peculiar 
doctrines of Christianity, but of any distinct recognition 
even of Divine Providence. In this fast-day of 1809, 
the supremacy of God and of His government is not 
only very fully acknowledged, but very earnestly in- 
sisted on. The contrast between the two discourses 
marks a stage in that progress which this volume is 
meant to trace. 





\ 


It is the sublimest exercise of piety to 
refer everything around us to the wis- 
dom of God—to acknowledge Him in 
all the events of His providence—to 
place our refuge in His wisdom in the 
evil days of darkness and disorder, and 
to rest our confidence on that Almighty 
Being who sitteth above, and presides 
in high authority over the theatre of 
human affairs. Such are the consola- 
tions of piety—such the elevation of 
heart which religion confers—an eleva- 
tion which the world knoweth not, and 
which the tyrant of this world cannot 
take away. Life is short, and its anxie- 
ties are soon over. The glories even of 
the conqueror will soon find their hiding- 
place in the grave. Ina few years, and 
that power which appals the world will 
feel all the weakness of mortality—the 
sentence of all must pursue him—the 
fate of all must overtake him; he must 
divest himself of his glories, and lie 
down with the meanest of his slaves— 
that ambition which aspires to the do- 
minion of the whole earth, will at last 
have but a spot of dust to repose on—it 
will be cut short in the midst of its tri- 
umphs—it will sleep from all its anxie- 
ties, and be fast locked in the insensi- 
bility of death. There the wicked cease 
from troubling, and the weary are at 
rest. 

We live in a busy and interesting 
period. Every year gives a new turn 
to the history of the world, and throws 
a new complexion over the aspect of 
political affairs. The wars of other 
times shrink into insignificance when 
compared with the grand contest which 
now embroils the whole of civilized so- 
ciety. They were paltry in their origin 
—they were trifling in their object— 
they were humble and insignificant in 
their consequences. A war of the last 
generation left the nations of Europe in 
the same relative situation in which it 


416 


found them; but war now is on a scale 


of magnitude that is quite unexampled | 
partment of the State. 


in the history of modern times. Not to 


decide some point of jealousy or to se-, 
cure some trifling possessions, it em-| 
braces a grander interest-—it involves. 
the great questions of Existence and | 
Liberty. Every war is signalized with | 


the wreck of some old empire and the 


establishment of a new one—all the’ 


FAST-DAY DISCOURSE. 





visions of romance are authenticated in 


the realities which pass before us—the | 


emigration of one royal family, the flight 


and the imprisonment of another, the | 


degradation of a third to all the obscu- 
rity of private life—these are events 
which have ceased to astonish us be- 
cause their novelty is over, and they 


are of a piece with those wonderful | 


changes which the crowded history of 


these few years presents to our remem- | 


brance. Such a period as this, then, 
gives full scope for the exercise of piety. 


Let everything be referred to God; in| 


this diversity of operations, let us re- 
member that it is He who worketh all 
in all—let us recognize Him as the au- 
thor of all these wonders—and amid 
this bewildering variety of objects, let 
us never lose sight of that mighty Be- 
ing who sustains all and directs all. It 
is His judgments that are abroad in the 
word—it is His magnificent plans that 
are verging to their accomplishment— 
it is His system of beauty and order and 
wisdom, that is to proceed from this wild 
uproar of human passions. He can re- 
strain the remainder of human wrath— 
He can allay the fury and the turbu- 
lence of human ambition—He can make 
order spring out of confusion, and attune 
every heart and every will to His pur- 
poses. 

Let it not be disguised. There is 
ground for apprehension in the charac- 
ter and talents of theenemy. There isa 
wisdom in his politics, there is a power 
and a rapidity in his decisions, there 
is a mysterious energy in his character, 
there is a wealth and a population in 
his empire that are sufficient to account 
for that tide of success which has ac- 
companied him in all his efforts against 
the imbecility of the old governments. 
The governments he had to contend 
with were old, and they had all the in- 
firmities of age. They wanted that 





[SERM. - 


vigour and impulse and purity which a 
revolution communicates to every de- 
With the one 
party we see an energy pervading every 
department of the public service—with 
the other we see the most important ad- 
ministrations intrusted to the minions 
of a court, to the puny lordlings of he- 
reditary grandeur—a set of beings who 
had nothing to sustain them but the 
smile of a minister, or nothing to pro- 
tect them from insignificance but the 
blazoned heraldry of their ancestors. 
There is no denying that in France the 
military appointments are decided by 
the questions of merit and fitness and 
character. In the other countries of 
Kurope—and I blush to say that even 
in this vaunted abode of purity and of 
patriotism, almost everything connected 
with the interest of the public comes 
under the putrifying touch of money or 
of politics—that corruption has insinu- 
ated itself into every department of the 
State—that men are summoned up 
into offices of distinction who are only 
calculated to cover a nation with dis-— 
grace, and expose it to the derision of 
its enemies—that the public voice has 
lost its energy, and the united indig- 
nation of a whole people is.often unable 
to drag to punishment those delinquents 
whom patronage has exalted and the 
smiles of a court have sheltered from 
infamy. This surely affords a heart- 
less and a mortifying spectacle, and is. 
calculated to alarm any lover of his 
country when he compares it with that 
dreadful energy which its enemies can 
muster up to overwhelm it. We see no 
imbecility there—no corruption in the 
military appointments of Bonaparte— 
no submissive accommodation to the 
interest of great families—the truth is, 
that his power renders him independent 
of it. In him we see vested in one 
person the simple energy of a despot 
ism. He is so far exalted above the 
greatest of his subjects that to his eye 
all are equal. He needs not to tem- 
porize or accommodate or allure the 
friendship of a great family with the 
bribery of corruption—he throws open 
the career of preferment to the whole 
of his immense population—he calls up- 
on all to enter into this generous and 
aspiring competition of talent, and it is 


\ 


wd 


a competition that has often exalted the 
veriest child of raggedness and obscur- 
_ ity to the proudest offices of the empire. 
I do not speak in the tone of disaffec- 
tion—I speak in the tone of patriotism. 
I do not mean to pursue the errors of 
my Government in the spirit of hostil- 
ity—it is in that spirit of regret that 
proceeds from the sincerity of my at- 
tachment—from my conviction that the 
overnment of Hneland is worth the 
contending for—that every lover of his 
country should stand by it to maintain 
its purity, as well as to defend its exist- 
ence—that he should not only risk his 
life in fighting the battles of his coun- 
try against the enemies of its indepen- 
dence, but that he should risk all the 
advantages of patronage and prefer- 
ment in fighting the battles of the Con- 
stitution against the enemies of its pur- 
ity and its vigour. Let us hope that the 
present state of affairs will operate as 
an effectual lesson to the rulers of the 
country—that the sense of danger will 
animate the public mind to all the en- 
thusiasm of virtue—that the ardour of 
patriotism will chase away all the obli- 
quities of a selfish and interested poli- 
tics—that our legislation will turn with 
shame from the low game of party dis- 
sension, and lend their unanimity to 
that noble-struggle that is to decide the 
liberty of the future age, and give a 
lasting complexion to the history of 
future times. But let us not forget our 
dependence upon God—that mighty Be- 
ing who reigns supreme over the will 
of man, and exerts an absolute contro! 
over all hearts and all purposes. He 
who hardened the heart of Pharaoh 
against the calamities of his country 
can exert the same influence over the 
minds of the rulers of the present day. 
He can infatuate the mind of the coun- 
try against the feeling of its dangers— 
He can throw a slumbering indifference 
over the land—He can lay-us asleep on 
the brink of destruction, and send that 
torpor, that security into the hearts of 
our rulers which is the melancholy 
symptom of a falling empire. But we 
hope better things; that the same God 
who can turn the heart of man where- 
soever he will, will send a wise anda 
righteous spirit over the government of 
public affairs—that the country will 


oO 
on 





FAST-DAY DISCOURSE. 


417 


awaken to its dangers—and that purity 
and patriotism will at length preside 
over the administration of its interests. 
In this day set apart for the expres- 
sion of public sentiments, you should 
rise in gratitude to the Ruler of nations, 
that mighty Being who has turned the 
battle from your gates; who has sin- 
led you out among the countries of 
furope, and given you the exclusive 
privilege of living in peace while the 
world around you is involved in all the 
cruelty and turbulence of war. I fear 
that none of us have a lively enough 
conception of the gratitude that we 
ought to feel for so inestimable a bless. 
ing—that we live in the bosom of do- 
mestic tranquillity—that we have no 
midnight alarm to disturb us—no sound 
of horror to strike upon our ear, and 
keep us awake and trembling in the 
agony of apprehension—no moaning of 
wounded acquaintances—no shrieks ol 
the dying to rend the heart of sensibil- 
ity—no hostile footsteps to warn us of 
the nearness of a brutal and enraged 
soldiery—-no loud and stormy reproaches, 
to send anguish into the mother’s heart, 
and make her weep in the wildness of 
despair over the members of her shrink- 
ing and devoted family. What a pic- 
ture of horror—the seat of war—when 
the marauding army of the conqueror 
is let loose upon the country—when 
they separate into parties, and each 
singles out its own house or its own 
neighbourhood as the object of its bru- 
tality and its vengeance—when every 
nerve is strained to deeds of barbarity 
——when pity is laughed at as a weak- 
ness or its gentle whispers are drowned 
in the wild uproar of rapacity and deso- 
lation and murder. What a contrast to 
the country in which we live !—what a 
spectacle of peace in the midst of a wild 
and troubled theatre! What would 
not the houseless victims of Spain give 
for the warmth and security of our 
(lwellings ?—where every man lives un- 
der his own vine and his own fig-tree— 
where he steps forth in the morning 
and prosecutes in safety the labours of 
the day—-where he returns in the 
evening, and has his peaceful fireside 
enlivened by the smiling aspect of his 
family around him—where the Sabbath 
morn still continues to bless the hum- 





418 


ble abode of the poor man and of the 
Jabourer—where the church-bell is still 
heard to waft its delightful music along 
our valleys, and to call an assembled 
people to the exercise of piety. Let the 
piety of this day be gratitude to that 
mighty Being who takes up the hills 
in His hands, and weighs the nations 
ina balance. He has thrown around 
our happy country the shelter .of a pro- 
tecting ocean—He has mustered his 
-own elements to defend us. The green 
island of the north sits in the bosom of 
security—it hears the sound of the bat- 
tle from afar, but quietness dwells there, 
and peace and joy are among its chil- 
dren. 

Look at the extent of Britain, and it 
isa speck on the surface of the world. 
Look at the map, and it appears like an 
humble appendage to that immense 
continent that is in arms against it. 
Yet how high it stands in the proud 
lists of glory—how great in the inde- 
pendence of its empire—how awful in 
the thunder of its power that is heard 
in the remotest corners of the world— 
how firm in the patriotism and intrepid- 
ity of its people, who rally round the 
standard of their liberties, and maintain 
the name and dignity of their nation 
against the fury of a devouring am- 
bition ! 

We have to thank the God of battles 
that Britain, though deceived perhaps 
in her aspiring wishes for the liberties 
of Kurope—yet that Britain herself 
stands as secure and as independent as 
ever. In the very last event of her his- 
tory there may have been disaster, but 
there has been no disgrace—there may 
have been loss, but there has been no 
infamy—there may have been retreat 
from the power of numbers. but even 
this retreat has been emblazoned in the 
splendours of victory, and the annals of 
our country’s renown are crowded with 
the names of dead and of living heroes. 
Grant that we abandon the liberty of 
Europe—yet the question of Britain’s 
liberty is entire. Weare no worse than 
before. The enemy does not stand in 
a more menacing attitude—nor does in- 
vasion lower more frightfully than at 
first upon our beloved island. The 
country has witnessed the talent and 
the prowess of our commanders—its 





FAST DAY DISCOURSE. 


[SERM. 


confidence is exalted. Our late cam- 
paigns have furnished a most useful ac- 
cession to military skill and military | 
experience. That alarm which seized 
our politicians at the bug-bear of our 
commercial embarrassments, has sub- 
sided. It is not above a year since it 
was anticipated, from the suspension of 
all intercourse with other nations, that 
something in the shape of a convulsion 
was to come upon the country. The 
convulsion has never made its appear- 
ance—it has spared us for one year. and 
it will spare us for twenty, if circum- 
stances impose upon us the necessity of 
prolonging the experiment to such an 
extent. The public interest is as flour- 
ishing as ever. We witness the same 
animation and extent and prosperity in 
all the departments, both of the public 
service and of private industry. The 
experience of every day is vindicating 
to the eyes of the world the independ- 
ence of our resources, and that we have 
a vigour within which is native and in- 
herent and imperishable. 

Do not think that I am turning your 
attention from religion to politics. I 
am enumerating the circumstances on 
which your prosperity is founded ; but 
I give God the glory and the praise for 
being the author of these circumstances. 
The explanation of any event or of 
any appearance upon natural principles 
should have no effect whatever in ex- 
tinguishing piety. I am correct in 
saying, that we enjoy light in the day- 
time, because then the sun is above the 
horizon; but it does not therefore follow 
that I stop short at this explanation— 
that I forget that mighty Being who 
gave the sun its existence, who fixed 
this astonishing mass of luminous mat- 
ter in the centre of our system, and | 
bade it give light and cheerfulness and 
joy te the worlds that roll around it. I 
aim correct in saying that the future se- 
curity and independence of our empire 
is founded on the patriotism of our peo- 
ple, on the attachment which the coun- 
try feels to its government. and on the 
extent of those resources which it is the 
province of an enlightened economy to 
unfold and to establish; but it does not 
follow that I overlook God—that I with- 
draw your attention from Him who is 
the author of all facts and of all princi- 


\ 


vit. ] THE SENTIMENTS SUITABLE 
ples—that I withhold the homage of 
my gratitude and my piety from that 
great comprehensive power that presides 
in high authority over the moral as well 
as over the material universe—or that 
I offer an idolatry to second causes, 
which I would take away from that su- 
preme and animating mind that formed 
all things and sustains all things. 

A dark and tremendous uncertainty 
hangs over the future history of the 
world. Events succeed each other with 
a rapidity that absolutely benumbs the 
faculties and annihilates the sensation 
of wonder. As much happens in the 
space of a single year, as would formerly 
have been enough to signalize a whole 
century. During the wars of Frederick 
of Prussia, all Kurope hung upon his 
enterprises—every eye was turned: as to 
a splendid theatre, where the genius and 
intrepidity of a great man commanded 
the homage of an admiring world, and 
the report of his victories filled all peo- 
ple with terror and astonishment. This 
same Prussia is annihilated in the space 
of a few days—and mark the difference 
of the public mind: it has ceased to be 
spoken of All the interest and wonder 
and novelty of this great occurrence 
evaporates in the course of a single 
month. The attention of the public is 
hurried away to other objects—new 
scenery is presented to engross every 
eye and eclipse the memory of the old. 
The mind is fatigued with the rapidity 
of the succession—it seeks for repose in 
indifference—and the same public that ' 





TO A COMMUNION SABBATH. 419 
was once so feelingly alive to the fate 
of a ruined kingdom or the interests of 
a trifling principality, would now slum- 
ber in apathy though all Europe were 
in commotion, and its oldest empires fell 
in this wild war of turbulence and dis- 
order. 

Let us rise in gratitude to Heaven 
that we stand aloof from this theatre of 
convulsions. Our security depends up- 
on ourselves. No wisdom, no energy 
can save us, if we flinch from the cause 
of patriotism and virtue. The strength 
of a country lies in the heart of its in- 
habitants. This is a day of fasting; but 
we should remember that to fast is to 
repent, and to repent is to reform. It 
is not the visionary reform of political 
enthusiasts that I speak of—it is a re- 
form in the lives and hearts of individuals 
—that reform which would settle the 
reign of integrity in the councils of our 
nation, and would settle the influence of 
piety among our families and cottages 
—that reform which would descend to 
your children, and secure the character 
of yet future ages—that reform of which, 
every great man should give the exam- 
ple that every poor man should be proud 
to imitate—that reform which would 
reconcile all the orders of the community, 
and make them feel that they had but 
one cause and one interest—that reform 
which would banish prejudice and dis- 
affection from the land, and bind to the 
throne ofa beloved sovereign the homage 
of a virtuous and affectionate people. 


SERMON VIII. 


The Sentiments suitable to a Communion Sabbath.* 


PRAYER. 


We desire, O Lord, to pay Thee the hom- 
age of our humility and of our gratitude— 
of our gratitude, because of the multitude 
of Thy mercies, and of our humility, because 





* The year 1810 was the transition period in the re- 
ligious history of Dr. Chalmers. Death had thrice en- 
tered the circle of his nearest relationship. He himself 
had been trembling on the very border of the grave. 
An illness which for four months confined him to his 


we are unworthy of the least of them. We 
are the feeble insects of an hour—Thou art 


room, and for more than half a year rendered him unfit 
for all public duty, had brought death and eternity very 
near to his thoughts. He was engaged, besides, in 
drawing up the article “ Christianity” for the Edinburgh 
Encyclopedia—in preparing which, the primitive Chris- _ 
tians—their characters—their lives—their death—had | 
become the object of an intensely interesting contem- 
plation. ‘Traces of all the different influences to which 
he was thus exposed, as well as of the effects produced 
by them, reveal themselves in the two succeeding ser 
mons, and in the prayers and addresses which accom- 
pany thex+—<2l of which belong to the same memorable . 
year. 


i 
+ 


- is at this world’s disappointments. 


420 


the Ancient of days. Thy duration has no 
end, and Thou art wrapt up in the still more 
awful mystery of having never had a begin- 
ning. The little circle in which we move is 
-but a spot in the immensity ef Thy works. 
‘Thy presence fills all space, and extends 
through the immeasurable fields of creation. 
All the powers of our thought and of our 
attention are taken up with the petty inter- 
ests of an individual, or with the humble 
concerns of a family. But Thine all-seeing 
mind is everywhere; it presides in high 
authority over all worlds; it takes in ata 
single glance the endless varieties of life, 
and motion, and intelligence—nor can the 
‘minutest of Thy works escape for a single 
-moment Thy notice and Thy direction. 

Blessed be Thy name we are permitted 
to approach Thee. We are Thy creatures, 
and have the privilege of Thy mercy. Thine 
all-seeing eye never abandons us—Thou 
hast given us a part in this wide scene of 
magnificence and glory—Thou hast taught 
us to confide in Thy goodness, and given it 
to feeble, wretched, sinful man to rejoice in 
the hand that formed, and in the right hand 
that guides and sustains him. 

But how miserable our returns of grati- 
tude and obedience! Alas, we have cor- 
rupted our ways——we are children of guilt 

and disobedience. Look, O Lord, with an 
eye of pity upon our weakness and upon 
our errors. Alas! how feeble, how eapri- 
cious, how ineffectual are our best attempts 
to love and to serve Thee! We may form 
a momentary purpose of goodness, but it is 
speedily lost in the folly and dissipation of 
the world. In the quietness of solitude our 
hearts rise to Thee, and taste the elevation 
of piety. In the walks of active life this 
lofiiness of sentiment is forgotten—we min- 
gle in the pursuits of the world, and are 
driven along by the vanity of its perishable 
interests. In the hour of sickness we shake 
off the anxieties of time, and take a near 
and an intimate view of the vast eternity 
which lies before us. In the hour of health 
the infatuation returns—we place death and 
eternity at a distance; we get surrounded 
with the variety of this world’s objects— 
they exert an irresistible dominion over our 
senses—time becomes everything, and eter- 
nity nothing. The futurity which lies on the 
other side of time and of the grave is never 
thought of, or never thought of with improve- 
ment. We Jose all the impression, all the 
earnestness of our religious convictions; this 
world lords it over us. Are we grieved? it 
Are we 
angry? it is at this world’s provocations. 
Are we glad? it is at this world’s pros- 
perity. Are we thoughtful? it is about this 
world’s paltry and evanescent interests. The 
mind loses its elevation; it lets itself down 


THE SENTIMENTS SUITABLE TO A COMMUNION SABBATH. 


[SERM. 


from the grandeur of eternity; it becomes 
a slave to the delusions of time, and suffers 
the vanities of an instant to engross all its 


cares and all its anxiety. 


We lament before Thee, O Lord, our 
hardened indifference in matters of religion 
——that we should be so blind to the import- 
ance and the magnitude of its interests— 
that it should occupy so small a portion of 
our anxiety—that eternity should so seldom 
be present to our thoughts, while this world, 
and the things of this world, are suffered to 
exert an entire dominion over all our desires 
and all our faculties. Deliver us, O Lord, 
from an infatuation so ruinous, so unreason- 
able, so unworthy of beings capable of wis- 
dom and of reflection, and all of whom have 
a death to endure and an immortality to pre- 
pare for. Fill our hearts with serious and 
permanent and habitual impressions of re- 
ligion. May it be something more than the 
momentary impulse of an occasion—some- 
thing more than that momentary feeling 
which is excited by the eloquence of a ser- 
mon, the enthusiasm of a prayer, or the ele- 
vation of a mind which gives an hour to re- 
tirement, and forms its romantic purposes 
at a distance from the cares and distractions 
of the world—something more than that 
holy rapture which kindles in the bosom 
when the table of the Lord is spread, and 
the man of God invites us to approach it— 
something more than those sweet and heay- 
enly emotions which so often fill the heart 
of the Christian in the solitude of a Sabbath 
evening, when quietness is on all the hills, 
and everything breathes peace and piety 
around him. May the preparations of soli- 
tude tell upon our conduct in the walks of 
business and society. May the principles 
which are formed in retirement have vigour 
to withstand the difficulties of life and the 
formidable temptations of the world. 

May our religion not be confined to the 
solemnity of ordinances. May its empire 
be established in our hearts, May it reign 
supreme over the thoughts and purposes 
and affections. May it be with us in soli. 
tude as well.as in society—in the house of 
business as well as in the house of prayer 
and the meetings of the solemn assembly. 
Let it be the study of our lives to advance 
the honour of the true religion, and to ex- 
tend its influence in the world; and may we 
ever remember that the most effectual meth- 
od of recommending it to the world is to 
hold out to its view the peaceable fruits of 
righteousness. May it be the study of our 
lives to hold out a graceful and an alluring 
picture of Christianity to the world—to let 
the world see what the religion of Jesus is 
capable of effecting—what worth and what 
embellishment it gives to the character of 
every true disciple—what graces adorn the 


vir. J THE SENTIMENTS SUITABLE 
walks both of his private and his public his- 
tory—the honour which reigns over all his 
transactions—his noble integrity in business 
—the generous humanity with which he de- 

votes his time and attention to the interests 
of the species—the pure and unsullied tem- 

perance of his life—the virtuous authority 

with which he discharges the duties af a 
father, a master, and a husband—the quiet- 
ness of his happy home, where affection 

reigns in every heart, and peace sheds a 
holy calm over the feelings and tempers of 

a united family. 

' —- a 


“Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as 
long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your 
enemies’ land; eventhen shall the land rest, 
and enjoy her sabbaths.” Leviticus xxvi. 34. 


THE rest which was promised to the 
land of Israel is very different from. the 
rest which we enjoy. The land was to 
rest in the absence of its people. It was 
to rest for the wickedness of its people, 
while they were suffering under all the 
horrors of captivity and imprisonment. 
It was not the calm and peaceful tran- 
quillity under which we live ; it was the 
silence of desolation; it was the calm 
which follows after the horrors of a tem- 
pest ; it was the stillness of a depopu- 
lated country—the gloomy picture of 
ruined towns and deserted villages, 
where the battle had just ceased to rage, 
and the sword had accomplished the 
work of slaughter and extermination. 
How different from the smiling aspect 
of the country around us! I wish to 
call your attention to it, that you may 
rise In gratitude to the God of all your 
mercies, because he has kept the battle 
from your gates—because you enjoy 
your sacraments in peace, and the quiet- 
ness of the Sabbath morn still continues 
to bless the humble abodes of the poor 
man and of the labourer. You live, as 
your fathers did before you, in the bosom 
of security—you have quietness in your’ 
dwellings—the sound of the church- 
bell is still heard to waft its peaceful 
music through the valley in which we 
live—the people repair to the house of 
God, where they may join in the praises 
of their Redeemer without danger and 
without interruption. How fresh the 
morning of this hallowed day! The 
sun has mounted high in the firma- 
ment of heaven. Peacefulness rests on 





TO A COMMUNION SABBATH. 421 
the bosom of every field—the sound of 
the battle is afar. Everything speaks 
the goodness of the most High—and 
that the sheltering arm of the Om- 
nipotent is around us. He is in this 
house; His eye is continually upon us: 
“ Where two or three are met together, 
there I will be with you.” He will re- 
ceive the penitence and the praises of 
an assembled people: He marks the 
purposes of every heart: His eye is upon 


'the young when they lift their holy 





| prayer, and breathe the purposes of 


piety. 

The solemnity of a communion sab- 
bath has always impressed me as the 
most decent and affecting of all specta- 
cles—when we see the Christians of all 
ranks and of all ages sitting down at 
the table and joining in the common 
prayer of penitence and of piety—cele- 
brating the praises of that Redeemer 
who died for them—and obeying the 
sacred call which He left in charge to 
His disciples : “ Do this in remembrance 


of me—do this till I come again.” You 


are doing what your fathers have done 
before you, and what your children will 
continue to do after you. The name 
of the Lord will be held in everlasting 
remembrance. The ordinance of the 
Supper will be kept up till the end of 
the world—till He comes again, and the 
sound of the last trumpet announces the 
termination of all things. 

The best evidence of our gratitude 
for the peace which we enjoy in cele- 
brating the sacrament, is to celebrate 
the sacrament aright; and for this pur- 
pose let me study to impress upon you 
a few of those sentiments which this 
important and affecting ordinance is cal- 
culated to awaken. 

The first sentiment which I shall en- 
deavour to impress upon you is a senti- 
ment of thankfulness. The second is a 
sentiment of pious obedience to the law 
of Heaven. The third is a sentiment 
of the vanity of time; and of the im- 
portance of religion, which reaches be- 
yond time, and discloses to us the splen- 
dours of an everlasting world. 

The first sentiment which I shall at- 
tempt to impress upon you is a sentl- 
ment of thankfulness. You are the 
creatures of grace and of forgiveness ; 
you are the helpless victims of your own 


422 THE SENTIMENTS SUITABLE 


feebleness. You had thrown yourselves 


out from the approbation of God and’ 


the hopes of immortality. Nothing 
awaited you but a fearful looking for 
of judgment, and utter exclusion from 
the Redeemer’s kingdom. Every day 
you offend the God of your mercies. and 
every hour of your life you come short 
of His glory. The degeneracy of man 
is a doctrine too humble for the admi- 
rers of a self sufficient and ostentatious 
philosophy. It is not fashionable. It 
wants elegance to recommend it and 
‘some fine genius to throw around it the 
graces and the embellishments, of ora- 
tory. There are some who turn from 
the humility of the gospel with repug- 
nance and disgust—who delight to ex- 
patiate in the higher fields of elo- 
quence and sentiment, and ravish the 
ears of a cultivated audience with the 
beauties of virtue and the dignity of 
that mind which can maintain the rec- 
titude of its own purposes. But we 
have only to open our eyes and be con- 
vinced that this is the mockery of a 
warm imagination—that however beau- 
tiful the picture, it wants truth to sup- 
port it; that it is not confirmed by the 
evidence of observation; and however 


much we may love to dwell on the fan- 


cied scenes of perfection, they want 
both the gravity of wisdom and the so- 
briety of experience. No, my brother, 
there is no getting over it. Man is 
corrupt, and the testimony of everything 
around us loudly proclaims it. We 
have only to consult our own hearts 
and to take a lesson from the testimony 
of our own senses. In everything we 
see a want of firmness—a want of per- 
severance—a number of melancholy 
backslidings from the path of obedience 
—an insensibility to the awful con- 
siderations of heaven and immortality 
—an estrangement from God—an en- 
tire slavery of the mind to the trifles of 
sense and of time—and a thousand 
exainples of wickedness which proclaim 
our principles to be unhinged, and the 
moral constitution of man to be en- 
feebled. With such a multitude of tes- 
timonies before you can you deny the 
necessity of a Saviour—can you deny 
the homage of your gratitude to that 
mighty Being who came to relieve you 
from this body of death, and to unbar 


TO A COMMUNION SABBATH. [SERM 
the gates of immortality to a despair 
ing world? You had corrupted your 
ways; you had relapsed into disobedi- 
ence. The offence of our first parents 
had entailed feebleness upon all their 
posterity—the whole heart was sick 
and the whole head was sore—and 
man stood the trembling victim of his 
own disobedience, ready to be crushed — 
by the finger of Omnipotence, and to 
appease the fury of an offended Law- 
giver. But a Star appeared in the east. 
The day-spring from on high visited us. 
A voice was heard proclaiming glory 
to God in the highest, peace on earth, 
and good-will to the children of men. 
Our Saviour came down from heaven. 
He left the bosom of His father—He 
resigned the glories of His nature—He 
arrayed himself in the garb of human- 
ity—He took upon Him the infirmi- 
ties of a man—He made himself of no 
reputation, and became obedient unto 
death even the death of the cross. And 
He died that we might live—He died 
for the salvation of a world from which 
He received nothing but persecution - 
and ingratitude—He died to accomplish 
the benevolent purposes of heaven— 
He died to establish the reign of mercy 
and to restore the children of Adam to 
the smiles of a reconciled Father. You 
weep over the recollection of His suffer- , 
ings. You rise in gratitude to the God 
who created, and to the Saviour who 
died for you. Your hearts warm within 
you when you touch the affecting me- 
morials of His death—and may you 
prize His last words as the best of leg- 
acies: “ Do this in remembrance of me; 
do this till I come again.” 

The next sentiment which I shall 
attempt to impress upon you is a senti- 
ment of pious obedience to the law of 
heaven. It is quite in vain to say that 
the faith of the New Testament excludes 
obedience. Faith gives new vigour to 
your obedience. It is the principle of 
obedience, and obedience is the best 
evidence of, and the best testimony to, 
the purity of your faith. What faith 
could be livelier than that of the primi- 
tive Christians ; and where, I would 
ask. in the whole history of the Church, 
shall we find obedience more perfect, 
more zealous, more persevering, and 
more steadily maintained in opposition 


VI. | 


THE SENTIMENTS SUITABLE TO A COMMUNION SABBATH. 


423 


- to all the dangers of persecution, and to | charge to His disciples? But remember 


all the terrors of the world ? 


apostles of Christianity conceive that; are called upon to observe. 


the faith of their Master exempted them 
from the law of obedience? They had 
faith ; but did this faith extinguish their 
activity—did it render them indifferent 
to duty and to practive—did it set them 
loose from the restraints of morality— 
or did it exempt them from the labours 
of a life spent in the exercise of Christian 
‘virtues, and devoted to the maintenance 
of its cause? Take the Apostle Paul 
for an example. Whose faith more 
ardent, and whose life at the same time 
more laborious? He did not spend his 
time in the indolence of speculation. 
He had faith ; but faith was not enough 
for him. His life was spent in the 
duties of an active profession ; he went 
about preaching to all nations, and in 
so doing he gave an example of practical 
obedience ; he gave the example of a 
good work, and in so doing he rendered 
it evident to all succeeding Christians 
that good works form a necessary part 
of religion. In the performance of this 
good work he braved every danger; he 
set his face to every difficulty ; he spent 
a life of the most unwearied exertion, 
and taught us by his own example that 
to be a Christian is something more 
than to believe—that it is to do, and to 
practice, and to obey. You are also 
called upon to the performance of good 
works; and remember that you have 
not the same difficulties to oppose your 
progress, or to damp your ardour in the 
service of Christ. It is a good work 
that you are at present engaged in. 
You are sitting at the table of the Lord, 
and in so doing you are going through 
an active obedience ; you are performing 
a duty; you are giving an example of 
allegiance to the law of the gospel; you 
are obeying one of the commandments 
—Do this in remembrance of me; do 
this till [ come again. Let me never 
hear then of any contempt for practical 
righteousness. If works are to be ex- 
eluded from the system of Christianity, 
why undertake the work in which you 
are at present engaged—why join in 
the sacrament? for what is the sacra- 
ment but an example of practical obe- 
dience, and an observance of one of 
those laws which our Saviour left in 


Did the | that it is not the only law which you 


There are 
other laws, there are other duties, there 
are other acts of obedience which deserve 
your attention, and the neglect of which 
would render the sacrament useless, and 
the profession that you now make 4n 
idle mockery in the face of heaven. 
For what purpose do you sit at the 
table of the Lord ?—Is it not to testify 
your gratitude for the benefits of His 
redeeming mercy? Nov, is it possible 
that you can be sincerely thankful to 
a Bemg whose authority you trample 
on, whose will you disregard, whose 
commandments you violate? No, my 
brethren, there is no getting over it. 
Without holiness no man shall see God. 
The necessity of practical righteousness 
may be seen in every page of the New 
Testament. The same authority that 
calls upon you to join in the sacrament, 
also calls upon you to attend to the 
duties of ordinary life—Do to others 
as you would wish them to do to you. 
—Speak not evil one of another.—In 
brotherly love and in honour prefer one 
another.—Behave peaceably to all men. 
—Visit the fatherless and the widow in 
their afflictions, and keep yourselves 
unspotted from the world. Why do 
you annex so high a reverence to the 
sacrament, while those plain and every- 
day duties come in for no share of your 
reverence at all? Why do you look 
upon the sacrament as such a solemn, 
such an important, such an affecting 
ordinance, while you let slip the duties 
of charity, and justice, and plain deal- 
ing—duties which are certainly as much 
insisted upon in the New ‘Testament, 
and to which our Saviour annexes as 
high an importance as to any ordinance 
of His appointment? TI do allow that 
there is something impressive and af- 
fecting in the very nature ofa sacrament. 
It occurs seldom, and this has the effect 
of giving it great additional solemnity ; 
and. at all events, there is something in 
the highest degree serious and interest- 
ing in seeing a multitude of Christians 
assembled for the common purpose of 
expressing penitence for their sins, and 
gratitude to the Saviour who died for 
them. But I must think, in addition 
to all this, that there is another reason 


424 


which makes Christians more punctual 
in the observance of the sacrament than 
the other duties of the Christian life. 
The sacrament is a duty that can be 
more easily performed. [ do not say 
that it is easier to perform this duty 
wrjeht ; for in performing it aright you 
must yield the submission of your hearts 
to the whole law and obedience of the 
gospel. But I say that it is easier to 
perform this duty aright to the eyes of 
the world, than to maintain the other 
virtues of the Christian character. It 
is easier to sit down at the table of the 
Lord—to maintain an appearance of 
great reverence and great decency—to 
handle the symbols of a Redeemer’s 
death—to go through all the established 
formalities of this ordinance : it is easier 
even to weep at the affecting remem- 
brance of what He did and what He 
suffered, and to be powerfully impressed 
with the solemnity of the occasion—I 
say it is easier to do and to feel all this 
than it is to maintain an upright walk 
and conversation in the world—to main- 
tain integrity in your dealings—to be 
charitable and humane to your poorer 
brethren—to be sober and temperate in 
your conduct—to abstain from theft, 
and calumny. and injustice—to resist 
the allurements of selfishness and gain 
—to measure every step of your ordinary 
conduct by the commandments of our 
Saviour—to bring every thought into 
captivity of the obedience of His law. 
Now, why would you do the one while 
you leave the other undone? Why 
would you observe the sacrament, and 
neglect the other duties of the Christian 
character? Why would you mind the 
appointed fast, while you neglect the 
weightier matters of the law—Justice, 
and mercy, and faith? The reason, [ 
am afraid. is too plain. You would 
gladly get off with the easier. while 
you shrink from the more difficult parts 
of obedience. You would like to serve 
your Maker with as little trouble and 
fatigue as possible; you would lice to 
get to heaven as smoothly as you can, 
and discharge the burden of religious 
obligation at the least possible expense. 
Now is this your gratitude to your Sa- 
viour? Is this the high reverence that 
you feel for Him who suffered and bled 
for you? Is this the whole amount of 


THE SENTIMENTS SUITABLE TO A COMMUNION SABBATH. 


/ 
[SER™M. 


those fine professions that you make at 
His table to love and to honour him? 
Yes! you will honour Him while it ‘s 
easy ; you will obey Him when He calls 
for a light sacrifice. But if it is a heavy* 
commandment—if it is some painful 
sacrifice that he requires of you—then 
you would gladly get off How differ- 
ent from the example of the primitive 
Christians! They obeyed our Saviour 
in what was difficult; they resigned 
every interest for His service ; they bade 
adieu to the world and to all its joys: 
they were ready to surrender life in the 
maintenance of the Christian profession. 
Let us imitate their example. We have 
not the same hardships to encounter : 
we have not the same difficulties to 
oppose our progress. Let us enter with 
cheerfulness into all the struggles of the 
Christian warfare ; and as we have dis- 
charged the easier part of the law by 
sitting down at the table of the Lord, 
let us discharge the more difficult parts 
of the law by being honest in all our 
transactions with the world, diligent in 
the performance of every social duty, 
humble and condescending to our breth- 
ren of mankind, generous to the poor, 
and maintaining in every situation 
assigned us by Providence a life and 
conversation becoming the gospel. 
Again, another sentiment which I 
shall attempt to impress upon your feel- 
ings is the vanity of time. It is a 
sentiment which the recurrence of a 
yearly ordinance is well calculated to 
awaken. We live in the land of mor- 
tality, and neither rank nor age can 
escape its ravages. Every year the 
communion table presents us with a 
new spectacle. Some new communi- 
cants come forward to offer their first 
vows, and some old ones have disap- 
peared forever. Christians who were 
seen last year to live and to move and 
to handle the symbols of redeeming mer- 
cy, are now mouldering in the church- 
yard. heir friends have wept over 
them, and the grave-digger has per- 
formed for them the fast offices. The 
change is gradual. and fails to impress 
us; but ina few years the change will 
be complete. Another people will sit 
at that table, and another minister will 
speak to them. We shall be all .ying 
in quietness together, and a new gene- 


virt.] THE SENTIMENTS SUITABLE 
ration of men wii tread upon our graves. 
It appears to us a distant futurity, but 
the lapse of a few seasons will bring it 
round. The sun holds his unvaried 
course in the firmament of heaven; he 
marks the footsteps of time. and the 
span of a few revolutions will bring us 
to our destiny. Man hastens to his 
end, and in a little time the grave will 
receive him into its peaceful bosom. 
In this day of soleminity you should 
think of the mutability of all things. 
You should think of that country to 
which you are fast hastening. You 
should listen to the voice of wisdom, 
which proclaims the vanity of the world, 
and tells every man among us that it is 
not here where the firm footing of his 
interest lies. 
Ocme then, commemorate the melan- 
choly changes which are carrying on 
around us in this scene of weakness 
and mortality. Where are the men of 
the generation that is past? They, 
like ourselves, were eager in the pursuit 
of this world’s phantoms, active in busi- 
ness intent on the speculations of policy 
and state, led astray by the glitter of 
ambition, and devoted to the joys of 
sense or of sentiment. Where are the 
men who a few years ago gave motion 
and activity to this busy theatre? where 
those husbandmen who lived on the 
ground that you now occupy? where 
those labouring poor who dwelt in your 
houses and villages ? where those min- 
isters who preached the lessons of piety 
and talked of the vanity of this world ? 
where those people who, on the Sabbaths 
of other times, assembled at the sound 
of the church-bell, and filled the house 
in which you are now sitting? Their 
habitation is the cold grave—the land 
of forgetfulness and silence. Their name 
is forgotten in the earth, their very chil- 
dren have lost the remembrance of 
them. ‘The labours of their hands are 
covered with moss, or destroyed by the | 
injuries of time. And we are the chil-| 
dren of these fathers, and heirs to the 
same awful and stupendous destiny. 
Ours is one of the many generations | 
who pass in rapid succession through | 
this region of life and of sensibility. | 
The time in which I live is but a small | 
moment of this world’s history. When 
we rise in contemplation to the roll of | 


54 














TO A COMMUNION SABBATH. 425 
ages that are past, the momentary being 
of an individual shrinks into nothing 
It is the flight of ashadow; it isadream 
of vanity; it is the rapid glance of a 
meteor; it is a flower which every 
breath of heaven can wither into decay ; 
it is a tale which as a remembrance 
vanishes ; it is a day which the silence 
of a long night will darken and over- 
shadow. In a few years our heads will 
be laid in the cold grave, and the green 
turf will cover us. The children who 
come after us will tread upon our graves; 
they will weep for us a few days; they 
will talk of us a few months; they will 
remember us a few years; when our 
memory shall disappear from the face 
of the earth, and not a tongue shall be 
found to recall it. Now. one use to 
which we should apply the recurrence 
of a solemn and yearly ordinance is to 
recall the flight of time, and the rapid 
disappearance of its vain and perishable 
glories. There is a blind and melan- 
choly infatuation upon this subject. 
How perishable is human life; yet no 
man lays it to heart. Death multiplies 
around us, and we look on with a 
wretched indifference. Acquaintances 
fall every year, and-we resist the im- 
pressive warnings of mortality. Even 
under the pressure of age and of infirm- 
ity, we turn our eyes from our latter 
end, and count upon many days of en- 
joyment. When the people carry a 
neighbour to his grave, their talk is of 
this world and of this world’s business. 
And when they see the earth close over 
him, and take leave of an acquaintance 
forever, they recur every man to his own 
work, and in a few hours it is forgotten. 

It strikes me as the most impressive 
of all sentiments—that it will be all the 
same a hundred years after this. It is 
often uttered in the form of a proverb, 
and with the levity of a mind that is 
not aware of its importance. <A hun- 
dred years afier this! Good heavens! 
with what speed and with what cer- 
tainty will those hundred years come to 
their termination. This day will draw 
to a close, and a number of days make 
one revolution of the seasons. Year 
follows year, and a number of years 
makes up a century. These little in- 
tervals of time accumulate and fill up 
that mighty space which appears to the 


426 THE SENTIMENTS SUITABLE 
fancy so big and so immeasurap.e. 
The hundred years will come, and they 
will see out the wreck of whole genera- 
tions. Hvery living thing that now 
moves on the face of the earth will dis- 
appear from it. The infant that hangs 
on its mother’s bosom will only live in 
the remembrance of his grandchildren. 
The scene of life and intelligence that is 
now before me will be changed into the 
dark and loathsome forms of corruption. 
The people who now hear me, they will 
cease to be spoken of; their memory 
will perish from the face of the country; 
their flesh will be devoured with worms; 
the dark and creeping things that live 
in the holes of the earth will feed upon 
their bodies; their coffins will have 
mouldered away, and their bones be 
thrown up in the new-made grave. 
And is this the consummation of all 
things? Is this the final end and issue 
of man? Is this the upshot of his 
busy history? Is there nothing beyond 
time and the grave to alleviate the 
gloomy picture, to chase away these 
dismal images? Must we sleep forever 
in the dust, and bid an eternal adieu to 
the light of heaven? 


ADDRESS. 


Amone the last words which our Sa- 
viour addressed to his disciples, He said 
—‘ Ifyou love me, keep my command- 
ments.” You are now keeping one of 
His commandments, and you do well. 
You are sitting at His table: you are 
approaching Him in that savrament 
which He Himself has instituted ; you 
are making a solemn profession of your 
faith, and your gratitude and your obe- 
dience; you are testifymg your alle- 
giance to Him who suffered and who 
died for you; you are keeping up His 
remembrance in the world, and fulfil- 
ling the dying request of the best and 
the kindest of masters—* Do this in re- 
membrance of me; do this till I come 
again.” 

This commandment is not grievous. 
It is delightful to withdraw from the 
harassing perplexities of this world, and 
to rise to a foretaste and anticipation of 
that eternal feast which is prepared for 
us in a better. Itis delightful in this 


TO A COMMUNION SABBATH. [SERM. 


word of mortality, where friends and 


acquaintances are fast dropping away 
from us, to make an intimate approach 
to the truest of all friends. who never 
dies, and will never abandon us. On 
this day, when all nature smiles around 
us, and an unclouded sunshine reposes 
on every hill and on every valley, it is 
delightful to look forward to the still 
brighter days which the light of proph- 
ecy and of revelation has laid before 
us. This day will soon draw to its 
termination, and the clouds of even- 
ing encompass our dwelling; this delli- 
cious season of the year will soon pass 
away. and the lowering face of winter 
look black and: dreadful upon us ; this 
fair and unclouded weather which gives 
so much gaiety to the light and cheer- 
ful imagination, will soon be dissipated, 
and the rushing of the storm be heard 
upon our windows. Nature, and all the 
joys which nature mspires, are deceitful 
and transitory. The buoyancy which 
a fine day gives to the animal spirits 1s 
but a momentary elevation of the heart. 
It may soon expire in the deepest mel- 
ancholy—it les at the mercy of every 
fluctuation. By resting upon it you 
make yourself the creature of time and 
its never-ending vicissitudes. ‘The way 
to gain stability to your happiness is to 
rise from nature to nature’s God—from 
the vanities of time to the unfading 
splendours of eternity—from the joys of 
this world to the joys of heaven—from 
the little play of human passions and 
interests to the grand business of moral 
and religious discipline—to the sublime 
pleasures of faith and of devotion—to 
that peace which the world knoweth not, 
and that elevation of heart which pass- 
eth all understanding. 
' You see how the very words of the 
institution guide our wandering spirits 
to that rest and that immortality which 
we all aspire after—‘ Do this till 1 
come again.” 
cipation do these words inspire us with. 
| How calculated to reanimate the heart 
of the believer, and to sustain the weary 
and dejected spirit when oppressed by 
the anxieties of the world. He will 
/come again in glory,—armed with ter- 
ror, it 1s true, against the children of 
disobedience—but in all the mildness 
of His tender and indulgent character 





What a delightful anti-_ 


Vit. ], 


to the worthy partakers of His sacra- 
ment. And when He comes again He 
will take you to Himself, He will estab- 
lish you in the everlasting mansions 
of peace and of righteousness, He will 
clothe you in the bloom and the vigour 
of immortality, He will wipe away 
every tear from your eyes, and bid 
every anxiety of your bosom be hushed 
into gentleness. 

This is the noble and elevating pros- 
pect which Christianity has set before 
us, and it is a prospect which you may 
all look forward to. I do not address 
myself to the worldly—to those who 
are immersed in the cares of time and 
think seldom of eternity—to those who 
are strangers to God, and who, in ob- 
serving His ordinances, pay Him the 
mere homage of their external profes- 
sion, and are carried along by the 
stream of general example. The people 
to whom [ address myself are those 
who really wish for immortality—who 
labour under the most earnest and deep- 
felt anxieties for their salvation—who 
are diffident of themselves, and con- 
ceive, in the despondency of their spirits, 
that the comforts of the gospel were 
not intended for them. What I say is 
intended to cure the desponding Chris- 
tian of his hopelessness, and to assure 
him by the high authority which he 
reveres, that he is not far from the king- 
dom of God. He is now under that 
godly sorrow which worketh repent- 
ance unto salvation. He has commen- 
ced that career of sentiment which will 
lead him to heaven; and though grief 
and uncertainty encompass his outset, 
he must at last emerge into the delight- 
ful repose and confidence of the Chris- 
tian faith. It is very true that the prom- 
ises of Christianity are not addressed 
to all; but they are addressed to all 
who labour and are heavy laden. It is 
very true that there are many excep- 
tions to the grace of Gol—but these 
exceptions are only to be found among 
the careless, the unreflecting, the hard- 
ened, those who live in security, and 
hurry along the stream of infatuation 
till death comes like a whirlwind upon 
their blind and unawakened conscien- 
ces. It is very true that all are not 
saved —but all who labour and are 
heavy laden are saved if they come to 


THE SENTIMENTS SUITABLE TO A COMMUNION SABBATH. 


427 


Christ, for he has promised that He 
will give them rest. 

On this day, then, devoted to the 
celebration of a Saviour’s love, let the 
desponding Christian find comfort to his 
soul. Why abandon himself to despair 
against the express assurances of Script- 
ure? Will he deny the truth of Jesus? 
will he deny his Omnipotence as a 
Saviour? will he deny the mildness of 
His character, or give way to the op- 
pression of doubt and of anxiety, when 
to all who are in his state He addresses, 
without exception, the language of in- 
vitation and encouragement—Come to 
me, all ye who labour and are heavy 
laden? Why then does he conceive 
himself to be an exception? Our Sa- 
viour makes no exception, and what 
right has he to apprehend one? It 
is true you are weak, you are guilty, 
you are disobedient—the errors of frail 
“nd corrupted humanity hang about 
you perpetually; in every step you 
offend, and in every thought of your 
heart you fall short of the purity and 
elevation of a perfect character. ‘This 
is your disease, and it is the disease of 
the whole human race. Every son. of 
Adam is tainted with it; not a brother 
of the species who has escaped the ma: 
lignity of sin—all have gone astray, and 
not a man among us can present to the 
Father of Spirits the incense of a pure 
and unspotted offering. You feel as 
you ought, when you feel the burden 
of your infirmities, and tremble at the 
inveteracy of that disease which has 
made such cruel inroads upon the hap- 
piness and virtue of the species. But 
while your eyes are open to the extent 
and virulence of the disease, why should 
they be shut against the power and 
efficaciousness of the remedy? Why 
refuse the call of the physician, or turn 
a deaf ear to those gracious and consol- 
atory words in which the atonement 
of the Gospel is revealed to us ?—Peace 
on earth, and good will to the children 
of men. O the glory and riches ofthe 
love of Christ; it passeth all under- 
standing. _Why should you refuse the 
comfort that is held out by Him, who 
says in the words of the evangelical 
prophet Isaiah—“'The spirit of the 
Lord God is upon me; because the 
Lord hath anointed me to preach good 


428 ZION REMEMBERED BY 


tidings unto the meek; He hath sent 


THE RIVERS 


OF BABYLON. [SERM. 


You approach this mighty Being in 


me to bind up the broken hearted, to | the ordinance of His appointment. “and 


proclaim liberty to the captives, and the 
opening of the prison to them that are 
bound ; to proclaim the acceptable year 
of the Lord, and the day of vengeance 
of vu’ God; to comfort all that mourn; 
to appoint unto them that mourn in 
Zion, to give unto them beauty for 
ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the 
garment of praise for the spirit of heavi- 
ness ; that they might be called trees of 
righteousness, the planting of the Lord, 
that He might be glorified.” 





you do well. Approach Him in faith. 
Shake off the melancholy which op- 
presses you. Approach Him in prayer, 
and you will be heard. He will lend 
an attentive ear to the prayer of a 
broken heart; He will set your feet in 
a sure place; He will establish you in 
comfort. The sheltérmg arm of His 
love and His omnipotence will defend 
you. You will walk in gladness through 
the world, and enter with triumph into 
the glories of His kingdom. 


SERMON IX. 


Zion remembered by the Rivers of Babylon. 


PRAYER. 


On this the morning of Thy day we would 
approach Thee in the peculiar capacity of 
Christians. We offer ourselves to the Lord 
of the universe as the disciples of Jesus of 
Nazareth. We acknowledge Him to be the 
authentic messenger of Thy will and of Thy 
promises. We profess Him to be the only 
true and living way to the glories of Thy 
paradise ; that we can be redeemed only by 
His blood; that we can be instructed only 
by His righteousness; that we can be ani- 
mated and sustained only by His consola- 
tions. We profess ourselves to be the fol- 
lowers in the faith of those illustrious men 
who preached and who propagated the doc- 
trine of Jesus, who held fast their profession 
amid the terrors of martyrdom, and main? 
tained the sacred intrepidity of conscience 
amid the cruelties of a persecuting world. 
How refreshing, O Lord, to the minds of 
those Christians must have been the ordi- 
nances of Thy religion! How sweet to 
their souls the Sabbath morn, which re- 
called the triumphs of their Saviour’s resur- 
rection! and what a day of holy gratitude 
and piety when they approached the table 
of the Lord, and their hearts burned within 
them at a name and a remembrance that 
were. ever dear to them. They now sleep 
from the troubles of the world. They have 
entered into their quiet rest. They sit at 
the right hand of Thy throne, and shine in 
all the : splendours of righteousness amid the 
glorified spirits which surround Thee. We 
humbly desire to imitate their example, and 





to tread in that path which led the Christians 
of old to glory and immortality. In this dis- 
tant age of the Church we desire 'to do as 
our fathers have done before us—we desire 
to keep alive in the world the memory of a 
crucified Saviour—we desire to transmit to 
our children the purity of His ordinances— 
we desire that the dying request which He 
left behind Him may receive its accomplish- 
ment in all ages—Do this in remembrance 
of me; do this till I come again. 

May it be the delight of our minds, O 
Lord, to share in this affecting solemnity ; 
to approach that feast of love and of grati- 
tude which lies before us; to retire for a 
moment from this world of care to the feel- 
ings and the exercises of piety; and to rise 
to the anticipation of those joys which Thou 
hast prepared for us in Thy eternal kingdom. 
We live in happier times. The dark ages 
of violence and of persecution are now over. 
We can celebrate our sacraments in peace. 
The noble intrepidity of the Christians of 
other times has secured for their descendants 
the quiet establishment of their religion. 
We thank Thee that we can now repair to 
the solemn assembly—that there is none to 
make us afraid—that liberty of conscience 
is established—that the delightful music of 
the church-bell is heard in every valley— 
while a benignant toleration extends its in- 
fluence over a peaceful and a happy land. 

We thank Thee, O God of merey, that 
Thou hast not visited us with the trials of 
more troubled times. But may we never 
forget that there is still much to prove and 
to exercise the purity of our principles. May 
we never forget that Christianity is a war- 


x.] 


fare; thatin every generation of the Church 
believers have their difficulties to contend 
with ; that the life. of a Christian is a life of 
perpetual vigilance; that while we stay in 
_the world we have to struggle with its vices, 
with its allurements, with the passions and 
infirmities of our nature, and with that con- 
tempt which fashion and frivolity and false 
philosophy have often annexed to all that is 
serious. May we remember, Lord, that the 
Christians of old had something more than 
the mere Sabbath or sacrament to exercise 
to exercise their obedience—that their offer- 
ing to heaven was the incense of a perpetual 
sacrifice ; that every hour of the day the ter- 
rors of persecution hung over them; and 
that they were called upon to maintain the 
constancy of their professions amid the dan- 
gers and difficulties which never ceased to 
surround them. May we in like manner re- 
member that the duty of a Christian de- 
mands something more than the mere sacri- 
fice of a few hours at the place of devotion, 
or of a few sighs and prayers at the table 
of the sacrament. May we remember that, 
like the Christians of old, we have to main- 
tain a perpetual warfare; that we are never 
to throw aside the armour of faith and of 
fortitude and of principle; that we are to 
carry Thy religion about with us as the 
guide and the ornament of our lives, as our 
staff to support us amid the distresses of 
the world, and as our shield against its dif- 
ficulties and temptations. We pray for Thy 
blessing on this awful and important solem- 
nity. May it be the instrument of convic- 
tion to the guilty; may it be the instrument 
of repentance to the alarmed; may it be the 
instrument of faith to the penitent; may it 
be the instrument to the believer of refor- 
mation and perseverance in righteousness. 
On this day, devoted to the celebration of a 
Saviour’s love, may we think of our unwor- 
thiness; how helpless and unable of our- 
selves; how daring and multiplied our of- 


fences; how forgetful of our duty; how in- | 


sensible to the awful considerations of death 
and judgment and eternity. 

On this day may the hearts of the peni- 
tent be filled with the consolations of 'Thy 
promises. May they acknowledge the faith 
of the gospel as their only remedy and their 
only rejoicing. May they see in their re- 
membrance of a dying Saviour that there is 
a hope for the guilty who reform, and for 
the most abandoned of characters, if he turn 
from the evil of his ways. May they shake 
off the melancholy which oppresses them, 
and rise to the sublime confidence of the 
gospel; and may they no longer resist the 
animating hope of forgiveness when they 
think of the Son of God divesting Himself 
of the glories of His nature, descending from 
heaven, assuming the infirmities of a man, 


ZION REMEMBERED BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. 


429 


submitting to a life of cruelty and mortifiea. 
tion and to a death the most painful and 
ignominious; and all to impress upon the 
hearts of the penitent the joyful Jesson of 
pardon and immortality. 

On this day may believers gain additional 
strength to their principles, and renewed 
vigour to their purposes of obedience. May 
this act of devotion send them back to the 
world more prepared for the exercise of its 
duties. May it be something more than a 
mere momentary exercise, the effect of which 
expires with the performance. May it be 
seen many days hence, and may it yield in 
abundance the fruits of purity and of right- 
eousness. 

As we sit together at the same table, may 
we live together as children of the same 
God, as brethren of the same nature, as dis- 
ciples of the same Saviour. May the hearts 
of all be improved, and consoled, and ex- 
alted. May we think of that eternal feast 
which Thou hast prepared for us. May 
every thought be withdrawn from the vani- 
ties of a perishable world. May we have 
our eye heavenward, where brighter days 
await us—-where we shall be purified from 
the imperfections of time, and be able to 
present to the Father of Spirits the incense 
of a holier and more unspotted offering. 


—<>—— 


“‘ By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; 
yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 
We hanged our harps upon the willows in 
the midst thereof. Forthere they that carried 
us away captive required of us a song; and 
they that wasted us required of us mirth, say- 
ing, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How 
shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange 
land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, Jet my 
right hand forget her cunning. If I do not 
remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the 
roof of my mouth ; if I prefer not Jerusalem 
above my chief joy.” —PsaLMs cxxxvil. 1—-6. 


Hap the Bible come down to us unac- 
companied by any pretensions to being 
inspired, it would have stood high as a 
literary composition; but the very cir- 
cumstance of its being the code of our 
religious faith is against the reputation 
of its eloquence. The Christian has a 
higher object in contemplation : and the 
infidel has too great a disposition to un- 
dervalue the whole subject to carry away 
a fair impression even of its subordinate 
merits. We are familiarized to the Bi- 
ble from our infancy. It is the book 
of our schools, and the reading of it 
formed the task and the discipline of 
our boyhood. In some cases this may 
lead us to associate with the Bible a 


430 


sentiment of reverence. and in other 
cases a sentiment of disgust. At all 


events. it must have the effect of modi-. 


fying in some degree our impression of 
it. The feelings and recollections of our 
early years never abandon us. There 
is an obstinacy about them which never 
fails to exert a most decided influence 
upon the taste; and in ‘this way our 
judgment of the Bible, viewed merely 
as a specimen of ancient literature, is 
different from what it would have been 
had we been released from those pecul- 
lar associations which must exist in 
every Christian country, or had our at- 
tention to its merits been the free and 
spontaneous exercise of our maturer 
faculties. 

Still, however, it is not in the power 
of any association entirely to obliterate 
the strong and genuine characters of 
excellence; nor can I conceive it possi- 
ble that any mind should be so beset 
with prejudice as to refuse the testimony 
of its feelings to the beauty and tender- 
ness of the passage which’I have now 
laid before you. It possesses many of 
the constituents of the finest poetry— 
the scenery by the river side—the ac- 
tion of hanging their harps upon the 
willows in the midst thereof—the senti- 
ment, such as was nearest to every bo- 
som, suggested by the memory of a dis- 
tant home, and the place where their 
fathers worshipped—the affecting ex- 
pression of that sentiment, “If I forget 
thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand 
forget her cunning”’—“ If I prefer not 
Jerusalem above my chief joy.” I must 
say, that in such images and expressions 
as these, there is a nature, a pathos, and 
a simplicity which must carry it over 
all opinion and all prejudice. 

There may be an excess in spiritual- 
izing. Christians there are who delight 
in the exercise of mystic interpretation 
—who find a hidden meaning in every 
passage of the Bible—who construe the 
most distant resemblance into a type 
and a prophecy, and whose whole ex- 
position of Scripture is made up of fan- 
ciful ingenuities. This extravagance 
has been carried too far. It is to be 
lamented by the friends of Christianity. 
It supplies a topic of ridicule to the en- 
emies of our faith, and it rests the de- 
fence or illustration of Christian doc- 


ZION REMEMBERED BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. 


[SERM. 


trine on ground which, to say the least of. 
it.is suspicious or vulnerable. The Bible 
stands in no need of any such commen- 
tator. Take it according to its natural 
and obvious interpretation. Enough for 
it the direct simplicity of its language 
and the strength of its unquestionable 
evidences. You would lose nothing 
though you were to surrender all the 
expositions of our mystical and figura- 
tive interpreters. In these expositions 
you often meet with much ingenuity, 
and what is still better, with much af- 
fecting and evangelical piety. But you 
may give them all up, and yet retain 
everything that is worth contending for. 
The great body of undeniable doctrine 
remains unimpaired. You have all that 
inspiration has thought fit to reveal to 
us in clear and authoritative language. 
We now live under the full revelation 
of the gospel; and why run in the pur- 
suit of shadows, when the truth stands 
before us in the plainest and most sub- 
stantial characters ? 
The psalm before us has been made to 
undergo two interpretations. ‘Take it in 
its obvious sense and direct meaning, and 
itis the song of Jews labouring under the 
horrors of the Babylonish captivity, aspir 
ing after their distant home, and swear 
ing to be true and faithful to the remem- 
prance of it. Take it in the remote and 
secondary meaning which has been as: 
cribed to it, and it may be considered 
as the song of Christians labouring un- 
der the miseries of their earthly pil- 
grimage, aspiring after that heaven from 
which sin and corruption had banished 
them, and swearing never to lose sight 
of it as their home and their expectation. 
Now I do not mean to dispute this last 
interpretation, but I think it would be 
as well that it were not too much in- 
sisted upon. It gives no aid to the doc- 
trine of immortality: that is sufficiently 
established without the assistance of any 
refined or mystical interpretation. But 
it may do mischief. It may give an 
appearance of weakness to Christianity. 
It may lead the unthinking to suppose 
that the whole body of Christian doc- 
trine is composed of such flimsy mate- 
rials as the remote and fanciful spec- 
ulations of mystical commentators. It 
may give a triumph to infidelity, fur- 
nishiug it with a fair subject for ridi 


rx. ] 


cule, and it may take away from the 
friends of the gospel all that security 
and proud confidence of argument to 
which the honesty of a good cause en- 
titles its defenders. 

Let us therefore abandon the idea of 
any spiritual interpretation, or rather 
let us offer no opinion upon the subject. 
The’ psalm still remains to us as a spe- 
cimen of most beautiful composition— 
and what is still better, it may be made 
as subservient as before to all the feel- 
ings and purposes of piety. If any 
writer shall fasten upon a distant home 
as the subject of his poetry, it is not 
necessary to suppose that it is my home 
or my family that is intended—it is 
enough for me that the sentiments of 
that poem are the sentiments of nature 
and propriety. I make them my own, 
I transfer them to the resembling situa- 
tion which I myself occupy; I catch 
the spirit of the composition, and feel 
my heart bettered by all the truth and 
tenderness which abound in it. » Now 
what is true of a human composition is 
true of the sacred poetry before us. My 
home may not have been in the writer’s 
contemplation, but no matter, I feel the 
inspiration of his sentiment, and I ap- 
ply it to my own circumstances—I enter 
into his pathos, because I feel myself, 
though not in the same, yet in a kindred 
situation. This wilderness of care I 
call my banishment—my distant home 
is heaven; and in the contempt and dis- 
couragements which religion meets with 
from the world, I see the triumph and 
the ridicule of enemies. I do not seek, 
nor is it of importance, to know if all 
this were in the mind of the psalmist— 
enough for me if he touches with sensi- 
bility and effect upon his own congenial 
situation—I feel myself carried along in 
a train of simultaneous emotions, and 
resign my heart to the full impression 
of his imagery and of his sentiments. 

With these observations in our mind, 
let us enter into the exposition of the 
passage now before us, and endeavour 
to apply the feelings and principles of 
the psalm to the actual condition of 
Christians. 

Ver. 1,2.—* By the rivers of Babylon, 
there we sat down; yea, we wept, when 
we remembered Zion. 


ZION REMEMBERED BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. 


431 


thereof” I am sensible that there are 
many who do not enter into the feeling 
that this world is a banishment. The 
world forms all their home and all their 
enjoyment. It is the sole theatre of 
their ambition; and in the happiness 
which they hope to find exclusively 
there, they never once think of giving 
a look or a wish beyond it. I am sen- 
sible that with almost every human 
being it is this world and this world’s 
objects which engross the great major- 
ity of their time—that its interest forms 
the grand spring of human activity— 
that it is for this that we see all things 
active and in motion through the vari- 
ous departments of business—and_ that 
the great purpose of man in all the rest- 
lessness and variety of his movements 
is to secure some warm and well-shel- 
tered tenement on this side of death. 
This entire devotion of the heart to the 
anxieties of time is the most obstinate, 
though the most unreasonable principle 
of our nature. In vain shall we bring 
every power of eloquence to bear against 
it—even the voice of heavenly inspira- 
tion has been lifted in vain; and even 
in spite of the gospel, and the splendour 
and evidence of its revelations, how few 
are to be found on the face of the world 
who live for eternity. But I shall re- 
fute, though [I cannot conquer it, and 
have only one argument to offer—the 
simple argument of the grave. What, 
I would ask, does it all tend to? It all 
ends in forgetfulness. As sure as yon- 
der sun maintains his unvaried course 
in the firmament of heaven, these busy 
and restless pursuits will terminate in 
nothing. J may fail to impress you, 
but it is not your impression which con- 
stitutes the truth. Time is the mighty 
and resistless element upon which [ 
make my calculation—and in all the 
confidence of this mighty argument, do 
I prophesy your fall. I have only to 
look forward to the lapse of a few short 
years, and I see every Christian who 
now hears me in his sepulchre. This 
little time will not put an end to the 
ambition of the world, but it will put 
an end to,yours. The generation to 
come will be the imitators of your folly, 
and human life will still offer to our no- 


We hanged our | tice the same spectacle of activity that 


harps upon the willows in the midst |is soon to be extinguished, and of joys 


432. 


that are on the eve of perishing. But 
to you the world with all its pleasures 
and all its greatness will be as if it had 
never been. It will pass like a fleeting 
image upon your memory. Eternity 
will rise before you in all its grandeur 
and in all its importance; and you will 
come to acknowledge that it is there, 
and there alone, where your home and 
your inheritance he. 

And what are we here but exiles from 
this home? What is the state of human 
life but a state of banishment from Hea- 
ven, and from the purity of its enjoy- 
ments—banishment from that peace of 
conscience which settles there—banish- 


ment from the presence of God and the | 


full contemplation of his attributes— 
banishment from that perfection of virtue 
which reigns in paradise, and from the 
exercise of all those delightful charities 
on which the dark and angry passions 
of this world have made so cruel an 
inroad? This is not our resting-place. 
Even the men of this world are perpetu- 
ally tending to repose, but never finding 
it—at one time racked by the pangs of 
disappointment, at another carried along 
the rapid career of a successful ambition 
——but finding, even in the full possession 
of the object they strive after, that the 
joys of this world are tasteless and un- 
satisfying. The heavenly-minded feel 
that this is not their resting-place. 
While they are in the body they labour 
under .the weight of its infirmities. 
Temptation assails them—fancy plies 
them with the vanity of its allurements, 
and their minds wander from the purity 
and elevation of the gospel. Vexation 
frets their tempers, and in the violence 
of irritated feelings, they forget the peace 
and charity of Christians. In the un- 
guarded hour of company they indulge 
their vanity or censoriousness, or love 
of distinction. It is true that a good 
Christian will struggle to maintain his 
integrity amid the innumerable diifi- 
culties which surround him. With the 
joys of the Christian faith he will com- 
bine the diligence of the Christian 
practice. The motto of his life will be 
— Though famt, yet pursuing.” He 
will try to make head against the sin 


ZION REMEMBERED BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. 





[SERM. 


religious discipline. But still the frail- 
ties of his degraded nature hang per- 
petually about him, and remind him of 
his fall. He aspires after perfect obe- 
dience, and grieves at the distance which 
separates him from the object of his 
pious ambition. He feels himself an 
exile from heaven, and from the purity 
of its laws. Je presses forward to the 
prize of his high calling, but grieves to 
find that the passions and interests of 
the world should so often break in upon 
the elevation of his purposes. Like the 
Christians of old, he is perplexed, though 
not in despair, and he longs to be deliv- 
ered from this perplexity. He longs for 
that time when he shall repose from the 
agitation of guilty fears and guilty pas- 
sions; when the powers of corruption 
shall be destroyed in his soul ; when his 
spirit, like the spirits of other just men, 
shall be made perfect ; when conseience 
shall have nothing to reproach him with, 
and every faculty within him shall move 
in harmony to the great laws of truth, 
and order, and righteousness. 

The Christian who longs for the reign 
of charity, and tastes it to be gracious, 
will feel that this is not his resting- 
place. In this world what cruel ob- 
structions to that perfect love which 
forms the joy of paradise ; what variance, 
what emulation, what rivalship among 
families exist in the bosom of every 
neighbourhood ; what deep and revolting 
insinuations to another’s prejudice or 
another’s ridicule; what unchristian 
pleasure in the low and mischievous 
work of calumny ; what secret repmings 
at the growing fame and prosperity of 
an acquaintance; and what triumph in 


his disgrace or in his fall! But let me 
not overcharge the picture. We do not 


say that this is of universal application ; 
but there are many examples of it, and 
enough to convince us that we are yet 
very far from those millennial days when 
charity shall reign.in the world, and 
form the whole human race into one 
family of brothers. There is no happi- 
ness more truly angelic than that which 
consists in the feeling and exercise of 
perfect cordiality betwixt man and his 
fellow. We are exiles, then, from the 


which most easily besets him, nor will| happiness of our condition, while we 
he ever to the end of his days shrink in | live in a world where this cordiality is 
indolence or despair from the toils of | far from being perfect—where it is ex- 


x. | 


posed to many interruptions—where the 
dark and angry passions are perpetually 
breaking in upon it—and where, setting 
aside the malignity of the human char- 
acter, our very ignorance of one another, 
and want of understanding, are enough 
to impede the free flow and harmony of 
friendship. There are some to whose 
hearts a cold unfriendly look forms the 
ccruelest of all disappointments ; who are 
formed for charity, and feel the exercise 
of it to be the most pleasurable of all 
enjoyments. ‘To such. as these, this 
world is a banishment. It is a banish- 
ment from that perfect love which reigns 
in Paradise, and is the delight and ex- 
ercise of all who live in it; where every 
eye meets another in the full glance of 
cordiality and affection; where in every 
being we meet with we recognize a 
brother and a friend; and where from 
the throne of God to the very humblest 
of His children, all shall rejoice in that 
charity which never faileth. and which 
will form the inhabitants of heaven into 
one great and united family. 

The Christian who droops and is de- 
jected under a sense of his infirmities 
feels that this is not his resting place.— 
There are some Christians who labour 
under the convictions of religion, but 
feel little of its comforts: whose minds 
aie a prey to the most disheartening 
anxieties ; who know that Christianity 
is a system of mercy, but feel as if they 
were not included in it ; who look only 
to the discouraging pictrts of their own 
guilt and their own insufficiency, and 
whose eyes are se:.om withdrawn from 
this gloomy co..cemplation to the bright 
and cheering spectacle of a triumphant 
Redeemer speaking peace to the hum- 
ble and the contrite spirit, and giving 
the assurances of His mercy to all who 
trust in Him. While we are still on 
our pilgrimage, even the best of Chris- 
tians must sometimes lay their account 
with these visitations of melancholy. 
They form part of our discipline ; they 
remind us of the imperfections of our 
nature, and of our distance from the full 
confidence and enjoyment of God; they 
teach us to aspire after heaven, and to 
long for that eternal city, where we shall 
live in the presence of our Father— 
where with the spirits of just men made 
perfect we shall encircle His throne— 

55 


ZION REMEMBERED BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. 


433 


where the hidings of his countenance 
shall be no longer upon us—and where, 
for the weariness and despondency 
which now oppresses every family, we 
shall have our hearts established in the 
joys of His salvation, and in the accom- 
plishmentof his promises. But while 
we are in the body we must feel the 
weight of its infirmities—our hearts are 
apt to fail us in the way—the joys of 
the Christian faith may at times aban- 
don us—we feel the misgivings of anx- 
iety and despair—and we weep when 
we remember Zion, and contrast the 
peace and blessedness of its mansions 
with this sad and weary wilderness. 
This is a grievous though not an incur- 
able disease. It is the desolation of the 
mind; it is that sorrow of the heart 
which refuses at the time to be com- 
forted. But it cannot last; it has its 
acme and its termination. Brighter 
days will succeed to it even in this 
world. Godly sorrow will not utterly 
consume its victim, or render him for- 
ever unhappy. It will at last land him 
in Many precious consequences ; it will 
work repentance unto salvation; it will 
speak peace to the spirit of the humble 
and oppressed penitent; it will translate 
him into the joys of the Christian faith. 
He will cast all his care upon Him who 
is the Redeemer of his soul; he will 
repose all his anxieties in the bosom of 
the Eternal; his sincere but imperfect 
obedience will be the evidence of his 
renewed principles. The ordinances of 
religion will be his delight and his re- 
freshment; his heart will be established 
within him in the full confidence of his 
God and of his Saviour: he will havea 
foretaste of heaven; and the dreariness 
of his banishment will be alleviated by 
the bright anticipation before him. 

Ver. 3, 4.—* For there they that car- 
ried us away captive required of us a 
song; and they that wasted us required 
of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the 
songs of Zion. How shall we sing the. 
Lord’s song in a strange land?” This 
alludes to the contempt and mockery 
which the children of Israel had to. sus- 
tain in the country of their banishment. 
The Babylonians asked them in deris- 
ion for one of the songs of Zion. They 
loaded with ridicule the pure and ven- 

| erable religion, and aggravated the suf. 


434 


ferings of the weary and oppressed ex- 


ZION REMEMBERED BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. 


ules, by their mirth and their indecen-. 


cy. We ere sorry to say that the re- 
semblance still nolds betwixt the Jews 
m a state of captivity and the Christians 
in the state of their pilgrimage. 
have also to sustain the mockery of the 
profane and the unthinking. Ridicule and 
disdain are often the fate of sincere piety 
in this world. Fashion and frivolity and 
false philosophy have made a formida- 
ble combination against us; and the 
same truth, the same honesty, the same 


integrity of principle, which im any oth-. 


er cause would be esteemed as manly 
and respectable, is despised and laughed 
at when attached to the cause of the 
gospel and its sublime interests. Some 
may think that the picture is over- 
charged—that religion dees not incur 
so much contempt from the world as we 
are insisting upon—and that the man 
who lives in the outward profession of 
Christianity, and in the practice of its 
different virtues, stands a higher chance 
for reputation in his neighbourhood than 
ihe man who tramples upon the institu- 
tions of the gospel and lives in open de- 
fiance to its morality. This is all very 
true; and yet it is also true that a sin- 
cere Christian has often much to un- 
dergo from the lev.ty and ridicule of 
the world. The ridicule is not annexed 
_to the social virtues of the gospel—it is 
annexed to that piety which in the New 
Testament is made the principle of them. 
The morality of the gospel (and we say 
it in its praise) has of itself a strong 
elaim upon the homage and admiration 
of the human heart—in its humanity 
the most amiable ; in its integrity the 
most.clevated ; in its fortitude the most 
manly; in its deperiment the most 
mild, and gentle, and condescending. 
Let a mar clothe himself in the differ- 
ent virtues of the New Testament. and 
he holds himself out to us in an attitude 
the mest graceful and the most engaging. 
But be not deceived. I say it is possible 
to admire these virtues, and yet not to 
admire Christianity ; it is possible to 
confine your imegination to these gen- 
aine effects of the Christian principle, 
and to turn away in disgust and repug- 
nance from the principle itself Even 
though separated altogether from religion 
as their motive and their principle, these 


We | 





[SERM. 


virtues would still remain the objects of 
admiration in every humanized society. 
It is not of contempt for the social vir- 
tues which spring from religion that I 
complain. They must ever be acknow: 
ledged as the finest, the most graceftu 
accomplishment of the human character. 
It is of contempt for religion itself; it is 
of contempt for the religious principle | 
viewed in its abstract and unmingled 
simplicity. There never can be contempt 
for the social virtues, whatever negh- 
gence may prevail in the exercise of 
them. But along with the admiration 
of these virtues, there can be, and to 
this hour there actually is, a very great 
and a very general contempt for that 
principle which forms the best and the 
only security for their existence. The 
ridicule is not annexed to the social 
virtues, but it is annexed to piety—it is 
annexed to reverence for the authority 
of God—it is annexed to faith in Christ 
-——and to all those sincere and evangell- 
cal principles which if they flourished 
among men would beautify the face of 
society, and form the whole human race 
into one happy and virtuous family. 
But why, it may be said, should any- 
thing be advanced that can lead to the 
idea that piety and the social virtues 
are independent of one another? God 
forbid that such a fair and natural alli- 
ance should ever be dissolved. But it 
is not Christianity which destroys the 
connection. It is the infidel who laughs 
at piety, or the lukewarm believer who 
dreads to be laughed at for the extrava- 
gance to which he carries it. The 
Christian is not for giving up the social 
virtues. But the open enemy and the 
cold friend of the gospel are for giving 
up piety; and while they garnish all 
that is meht and amiable in humanity 
with the unsubstantial praises of their 
eloquence, they pour contempt on the 
very principle which forms our best 
security for the existence of virtue in 
the world. Let me say nothing that 
can degrade the social virtues in the 
estimation of men; but separate them 
from religion, and what are they? At 
the very best they are the virtues of this 
life ; their office is to scatter a few fleet- 
ing joys over a short and uncertain 
pilgrimage, and to deck a temporary 
scene with blessings which are to perish 


1x.] 


and be forgotten. Make them a part 
of religion and you exalt them beyond 
all that poet or moralist can do for them. 
You give them God for their object, and 
for their end the grandeur of eternity. 
No it is not the Christian who is the 
enemy of social virtue: it is he who 
sighs in all the ecstasy of sentiment 
over it at the very time that he digs 
away its foundation, and wreaks upon 
that piety which is its principle the 
eruelty of his scorn. 

Now what I insist upon is, that re- 
ligion is the actual victim of this scorn 
—and that as the Jews in their state of 
captivity had to endure the mockery of 
their foes, so the Christians in the state 
of their pilgrimage have to endure a 
similar trial. I think that in the round 
of my own familiar experience, I have 
met with the most undeniable evidences 
of a pretty strong, and [ am afraid a 
pretty general contempt for religion. 
Why is family worship given up during 
the residence of a visitor? Is it not 
because you dread the imputation of 
being puritanical ?—and if you really 
dread the imputation, is this not a proof 
that it is actually laid upon all who can 
hold up their face to the exercises of 
piety? Why does a company fall so 
readily into a conversation about trade 
or politics or agriculture, but on the 
moment that there is the slightest ap- 
proach to religion, there is an embar- 
rassment visible on every countenance? 
It is a subject which all shrink from 
and which all are ashamed of—there is 
a meanness annexed to it; and though 
not an individual there who would not 
lend his fullest testimony to what was} 
respectable in justice, or graceful in| 
charity, yet all that is exalted in faith, 
and piety, and the elevation of a Chris- 
tian will be suffered to pass without 
praise and without acknowledgment. 
Let a man be humane, and you love 
him—let him be honest, and you con- 
fide in him; but let him be religious, 
and I do not say that you, but that 
there are many in the world who would 
pity or despise him. It is very true 
that they will allow him a certain degree 
of respect for hisreligion; they will grant 
him a certain degree of indulgence to 
this peculiarity—but he must take care 
not to carry it too far, He must not 





ss ee 


ZION REMEMBERED BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. 


435 


carry it to such a length as would be 
offensive or outrageous to the feelings 
of the world. They will allow him to 
attend church once a day—they wilh 
allow him to sit down at the sacrament 
—they will allow him all that is sane- 
tioned by fashionable example ; but the 
moment that he begins to distinguish 
himself—the moment that he steps _be- 
yond the limits prescribed to him by 
the omnipotence of custom—the moment 
that he becomes more punctual, more 
zealous, more declared in his attachment 
to religion and its ordinances than his 
neighbours in the same rank of society 
—I say from that moment he must preé- 
pare himself for the contempt of the 
world, and feel that he has to stand on 
the trial of his firmness. Let him do as 
others, and his religion will be tolerated 
as decent and inoffensive ; but let him 
do better and more than his neighbours 
around him, and it is all rant, all enthu- 
siasm, all the weakness of a drivelling. 
and unmanly superstition ; and the man 
who has the intrepidity to announce 
himself as a Christian, and be true to 
his Saviour and God, is branded as a 
Methodist—as a man who has trans- 
gressed all the rules of moderation and 
good society—as a man who has in 
some measure disgraced himself by ad- 
hering to an obstinate peculiarity, for 
which among a great proportion of his 
fellows, he will meet with no sympathy 
and no admiration. 

Ver. 5,6.— If I forget thee, O Jeru- 
salem, let my right hand forget her 
cunning. If I do not remember thee, 
let my tongue cleave to the roof of my 
mouth; if [ prefer not Jerusalem above 
my chief joy.” These verses express 
the determination of the Jews in their 
state of captivity; and let it be your 
determination in the state of your pil- 
orimage. Like them you may have to 
brave the contempt of neighbours ; but 
think of the grandeur of eternity, and 
tell me, with such an object before you, 
if this world’s contempt is not worth the 
braving? live by the powers of a . 
world tocome. Think of the littleness 
of time ; think of the greatness of eter- 
nity; think of the cloud of witnesses 
that at this moment encompass you; 
think of the spirits of just men who have 
gone before you; think of the angels 





“436 


that are now looking upon you from the 
high eminences of heaven; think of 
tha ind, that gracious Redeemer who 
died for your offences, but now sees you 
from His seat of glory at the Father's 
right hand; think of the omniscience 
of God ; and shall all the contempt and 
discouragement of the world make you 
falter from that path of duty and per- 
severance which will conduct you to the 
Jerusalem above? You sit at the 
Lord’s table, and you do well. May it 
be a refreshment te you by the way. 
ff your spirits are likely to fail, may 
this feast of love strengthen and restore 
them. May it send you back to the 
world more prepared to resist its tempta- 
tions—to withstand its contempt and 
opposition—to discharge its duties—and 
to improve it as your scene of exercise 
and preparation. My prayer to heaven 
is—that your faith may be invigorated, 
your hearts purified, your gloomy ap- 
prehensions dispelled, your prospects 
brightened, and your joy made full in 
the strength of the Lord, and in the con- 
solation of his promises. 


DeceMBER 8, 1810. 


ADDRESS. 


You have now finished the greatest 
solemnity of our blessed faith, and may 
rt not be an unprofitable solemnity. I 
trust that the sentiments you feel at the 
table will never abandon you—that you 
will carry them with you to the world, 
and that your religion, instead of being 
the mere obedience of a day or of a fes- 
tival, will rise to the Father of Spirits 
itke the incense of a perpetual offering. 
You are weak, but God can perfect His 
strength in your weakness; you are 
corrupt, but Christianity provides for 
this corruption ; you are guilty, but the 
grace of God is free to all who return 
from the evil of their ways, and offer at 
the throne of heaven their faith and 
their humility and their repentance. 
Some are apt to give themselves up to 
despair because they feel the weight of 
their own infirmities. But this is no 
discovery of their own. Christianity 
supposes them to be beset with infirm- 
7 proceeds upon this as the basis 
of that dispensation which the Saviour 


ZION REMEMBERED BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. 


ee 


[SERM, 


introduced into the world. It is true 
that they are weak and guilty; and it 
is to save them from the despair of this 
weakness and guilt that Christianity 
was instituted. In the grace of the 
gospel there is an ample remedy held 
out to all who feel themselves in these 
circumstances. There is the efficacy of 
Christ’s atonement—there is the dying 
love of a powerful and affectionate Re- 
deemer—there is the voice of His mercy 
—there is the tenderness of His com- 
passion—there is the graciousness of 
His invitation, Come to me, all ye who 
labour and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest. 

It is to commemorate the love of this 
kind and powerful Redeemer that you 
have this day joined in the Sacrament, 
and you have done well by commemo- 
rating His love. You have made the 
profession to heaven that you love Him; 
and I refer you to the Scriptures for 
the best evidence and testimony that 
you can give of that love—* If ye love 
me, keep my commandments.” How 
shall I know then that you have par- 
taken worthily? God knows, for He 
sees your hearts, but I have not that 
advantage. I cannot penetrate through 
the disguises of hypocrisy—I cannot 
unmask the pretensions of insincerity 
and deceit—I cannot take my secret 
stand, and with the glance of an all-seeing 
eye detect the artifice, the dissimulation, 
the coldness, the hardened insensibility, 
that lurks in the bosom of an unworthy 
communicant. J have nothing before 
me by which I can decide the question 
—TI can only decide upon the outward 
appearances which come under my ob- 
servation ; and it is impossible that in 
the short time of a few hours such ap- 
pearances can have occurred as would 
enable me to resolve the question. All 
that passes before man is a grave, a de- 
cent, and an orderly ceremonial. I see 
seriousness upon almost every counte- 
nance. I see an apparent reverence 
for this affecting solemnity of our holy 
religion. I see the marks of attention 
in every eye; and were I entitled to 
pronounce upon so short an experience, 
I would say that I see nothing but 
symptoms the most promising and the 
most satisfactory. But an important 
question remains. Is all this to last ? 








x.] 


Will the good feelings, will the pious 
purposes, will the holy voice of peni- 
tence and amendment be persisted in 
and called into sustained and habitual 
exhibition? God alone can answer this 
at present. 

For He alone knows the character of 
every communicant—He knows the 
strength or the weakness of your pur- 
poses—He knows. the sincerity or the 
falsehood of your pretensions—He 
knows whether you have made the en- 
gagement in that spirit of presumption 
which will be disappointed, or in that 
spirit of humility which his good Spirit 
will cause to prosper and to triumph. 
For me to say anything with certainty 
upon this subject I must have a little 
more experience. I can only judge the 
soundness™of your principles by their 
effects—I can only judge the sincerity 
of your repentance by your reformation 
—I can only judge of the evangelical 
power of your faith by its yielding in 
abundance the peaceable fruits of right- 
eousness. When I look abroad at the 
right season of the year over the face 
of the country, I see it glowing in all 
the pride and luxuriance of vegetation— 
I see the flower in its loveliness—I 
see the stalk which supports it—I see 
the leaves and the spreading branches ; 
but the root to me is invisible, nor would 
I have known that the root was there 
had it not been for the vegetation which 
rises ‘from it. When I look abroad 
upon the human beings of my neigh- 
bourhood, I see nothing but outward 
appearances—I hear their words—I see 
their behaviour—I mark their conduct | 





THE LIVING WATER 


437 


—I listen to their conversation—I ob- 
serve their actions. The root and the 
principle of all this is to me invisible. 
God alone can have a direct view of it, 
but I can infer the healthy root from 
the flourishing vegetation. | | 
Be a Christian then in your behavy- 
iour, and I will infer that you are a 
Christian in your principles. Let me 
see the flourishing vegetation, and J 
infer a healthy root, and look forward to 
an abundant harvest; let me see the 
fruits of righteousness in your conduct, 
and I infer that there is a root of sound 
and evangelical principle within you, 
and I look forward to an abundant rec- 
ompense of reward. May the solemnity 
of this day be the means in the hands 
of Providence of adding to the vigour of 
this root—may it be watered by the 
dew of heaven—may it become more 
steadfast and immovable in your souls 
—may it be refreshed by the blessing 
of the Lord, that it may be fitted for 
bearing such an abundant crop of virtue 
and righteousness as will redound to 
His glory and to the honour of His re- 
ligion in the world. If in the course 
of my acquaintance with you in after 
life I see you obedient to the gospel, at- 
tentive to its ordinances, holding up 
your face for its honour and its interests, 
zealous in promoting it, mindful of its 
duties, observant of its peace, its love, 
its candour, its fair dealing, its honesty, 
I shall then infer, in as far as it is com- 
petent for fallen man to do, that the 
grace of God has operated within you, 
and settled in your hearts a reign of 
faith, and charity, and righteousness. 


SERMON X. 


The Living Water.* 


Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to 
thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living 


water.” —Joun iv. 10. 


Ir must occur to every reader of the | 
verse before us, that something more 





* During the years 1812, 1813, 1814, 1815, 1816, Dr. 
Chalmers kept an accurate record of his preaching, 
from which the following and some subsequent notices 
are extracted : — 





is meant by Ziving water than the nat- 
ural element. There is a sense which 


Dn ree 


Joun iv. 10.—Preached at Dairsie, 14th June, 181% 
At Kilmany Sacrament, 21st June, 1812. At eae 
Lady Glenorchy’s, 19th July, 1812. At Anstruther, 23r 
August, 1812, At Denbog, 26th July, 1813. 


438 


lies under it-—a thing signified. of which 
water, the subject of conversation be- 
twixt our Saviour and the woman, was 
only the sign. And it might appear 
wonderful that this did not occur to the 
woman herself—that she did not seem 
to be aware of any hidden import of 
signification in the term as used by our 
Lord; but, conceiving that it was still 
the true or literal water that He was 
speaking of, she asked how He could 
have of this water, as the well was 
deep, and He had nothing to draw with. 
The truth is, that though the term /v- 
ing is calculated to suggest some high 
and spiritual acceptation to us, it was 
not calculated to suggest the same 
thing to her. The original phrase for 
living water was applied by the peo- 
ple of those times to water in motion, 
or running water. It had two senses, 
and she, as was most natural, took it 
up in the sense in which it was most 
commonly understood. But could liv- 
ing water, in this sense. be drawn 
up from the bottom of a well? Yes, 
if the spring was of such force as to 
give velocity and sensible motion to 
the water, it was still called living 
water. It is probable that the water 
of the well at which Christ and the 
woman of Samaria were then seated 
was living water. Certain it is that in 
the book of Genesis, xxvi. 19, where it 
is mentioned that Isaac’s servants dig- 
ged in the valley, and found there a 
well of springing water, it is called 
living water in the original language 
and it is so marked on the margin of 
our Bibles. In the same manner in 
the book of Leviticus xiv. 5. where the 
priest is ordered to kill a bird over 
running water, the words employed in 
the original are the same in significa: 
tion with those which our Saviour 
made use of when He talked of living 
water in the text before us. This ex- 
plains the circumstance of the woman’s 
still talking of drawing living water, 
and drawing it out ofa well. She was 
misled by the ambiguity of the term ; 
and this ambiguity threw a deeper dis- 
guise over the sublime and _ spiritual 
sense of our Saviour to the woman of 
Samaria than it does to a reader of our 
common translatton. 

It were well if it were in the power 


THE LIVING WATER. 


eee 


[SERM. | 


of a mere critical explanation to throw 
aside the disguise, and to secure a ready 
access into the human heart for the 
spirit and doctrine of our Saviour. But 
I am afraid that the misapprehension 
of scriptural truth lies somewhat deeper 
than in the mere misapprehension of 
language—and that examples could be 
named of profound and accomplish- 
ed grammarians, who have given the 
strength of their days to the elucidation 
of the Bible, and yet, both in heart and 
in conception, were utter strangers to 
the truth as it is in Jesus. . The igno- 
rance charged upon the woman of Sa- 
maria is not peculiar to her. It exists 
among the thousands of every country 
where Christianity is established. and 
where the title of Christian is prefixed 
to the name of every individual. There 
are multitudes that know not the gift 
of God, and that know not Him who 
proclaims and offers it. They know 
not what the gift is, and they know not 
how or where to apply for it.. The 
country teems with Bibles and with 
churches, and yet they maintain a de- 
termined ignorance in the midst of all 
their opportunities—their days on earth 
unenlightened by the guidance of that 
heavenly instruction which is to he 
found in the Bible—and, when thry 
come to resign their temporal life, utter 
strangers to the knowledge of God and 
of Jesus Christ whom He has sent, 
whom to know is life everlasting. 

I count it, my brethren, one of the 
most striking exhibitions which theol- 
ogy can furnish, that a man may give _ 
the strength of his days to the labour of 
its most difficult and profound investi- 
gations, and be, after all. a stranger to 
what is called in the Bible the spiritual 
discernment of the truth as it isin Je- 
sus—that after he has done all which 
earnest attention and solid understand- 
ing. and the talent of pouring upon his 
subject the light of a brilliant and con- 
vincing illustration, and every other 
faculty of his natural constitution can 
accomplish, he may still be labouring 
under all the blindness of him into 
whose mind the light of the glorious 
gospel of Christ has never yet entered’ 
—that the terms of “God,” and “judg- 
ment,” and “salvation,” and “grace.” 
may be recognized by him as well 


x.) 


- known sounds, and may even be em- 
ployed by him in such a way as to 
make out a sound and pertinent and 
irresistible argument, and yet the im- 
port of these terms may not be so per- 
ceived by him as to be at all felt or 
appreciated in such a way as a distinct 
sense of their meaning would infallibly 
lead him to do. Oh, it is interesting 
to observe how, when genius has ex- 
hausted all its resources, and that mind 
which would have carried its possessor 
to the sublimest attainments of human 
science has lavished all its exertions on 
the Bible, the man may still be in a 
state of positive deadness as to the liv- 
ing meaning and the practical influence 
of any of its truths; or, in other words, 
those truths are actually not seen by 
him. They do not come upon him 
with the impression of their reality. 
They may form the elements of many 
an ingenious speculation, and enter 
with appropriateness into many a pro- 
cess of reasoning, but by him they are 
not so believed and not so looked to as 
to give its prevailing bent to the heart 
and the life and the affections. He 
may even be sensible of all this, and 
wish it to be remedied, and bring his 
every natural power to the object; and 
yet he may find that all, all is unavail- 
ing. There is a barrier between him 
and the saving knowledge of the doc- 
trine of Christ, over which all the ener- 
gies of the best endowed intellect can- 
not carry him. Nay, he may perceive 
the most illiterate of his neighbours to 
have got beyond him, and to look on 
the field of revelation with such a clear 
and affecting perception of all its objects 
as he cannot,attain to. Such experiences 
as these are valuable, my brethren. 
They go to confirm the doctrine of a 
spiritual illumination. They harmon- 
ize with that utterance of our Saviour 
when He says, “ Father, I thank Thee 
that Thou hast hid these things from 
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed 
them to babes.” They put us all, as 
to the gospel of Christ. on the same 
footing of dependence—they reduce us 
to the attitude of little children. Nor 
do I know a finer exhibition than 
when a man of gigantic faculties is 
brought down to this, and knocks for 
light at a door which bh» cannot open 





THE LIVING WATER. 


| 





ge deren pt ean ie TS 


439 


—and feeling that he has done nothing 
till he obtain such a view of spiritual 
and unseen matters that believing on 
them from his heart the fruit may be 
holiness, he, after discovering the utter 
incompetency of all native and unaided 
exertion to obtain for him such a view, 
is at length reduced to the earnestness 
and to the humility of prayer. 

Let me attempt, in the following dis- 
course, to expose this in its various 
particulars. Some may, by the bless- 
ing of heaven, attend to us with the 
hearing ear; and the hearing ear may, 
by the same blessing, be accompanied 
with the understanding heart. God 
may achieve the greatest things by the 
very humblest of His instruments; and 
I count the greatest and most interest- 
ing of all events to be—what is unno- 
ticed by the world, and what the pea of 
history seldom records but in characters 
of contempt—that grand transition by 
which a human soul passes out of dark- 
ness into the marvellous light of the 
gospel. Could this light be only com- 
municated, you would no longer be at 
a loss to understand the gift that is 
held out, and the quarter where you 
were to apply for it. You would ask 
of Him who has both the will and the 
ability to give, and He would do to you 
what He promises to do to the womar. 
of Samaria—He would give you living 
water. 

First, then, many know not in the 
general that the blessings and the priv 
ileges of the gospel area gift. Without 
descending toa more particular expla- 
nation at present, this living water 
includes in it all the blessings and all 
the privileges of the gospel. The ig- 
norance which I now desire to expose 
lies in conceiving these blessings and 
privileges to be not a gift but a claim— 
not a free and gratuitous exercise of 
kindness, but the payment of an account 
—not what you receive as a present, 
but what you work for and obtain in 
the shape of well-earned wages. Now 
this delusion will have its own peculiar 
effect upon two classes of professing 
Christians. ‘here is one class who 
will look at their own performances, 
and think they have doneenough. This 
will be their confidence, and the rejoic- 
ing of their hope, that they have mado 


440 


out their claim. They will not ask of 
Jesus Christ—for why ask of another to 
do for them what they conceive they 
have done for themselves? why request 
as a present what they think they can 
demand as their due? or why have 
recourse to the interposition of another 
for securing them that which they hope 
to obtain upon the strength of their 
own actual obedience ? Observe the 
effect of this confidence. It is unneces- 
sary to demonstrate that this obedience 
on which they found their security is a 
most polluted and most unfinished offer- 
ing, and will not stand examination 
when tried by the purity and the requi- 
sitions of the Divine law. There are 
only two ways in which we can make 
good a claim to the reward of the law: 
we must either bring up the obedience 
to the standard of the law, or we must 
bring down the standard of the law to 
the actual state of the obedience. Let 
us try the first. Let us sum up all the 
capabilities of our nature; let every 
power and every energy within be 
pressed into the service—and to give 
all. fairness to the experiment, let the 
purest and the noblest individual of our 
race be invited to the enterprise of 
bringing up his obedience to the high 
requisitions of heaven. If the experi- 
ment has never been tried, what is this 
but to say that the general feeling of 
human impotency and human helpless- 
ness has condemned every individual 
amongst us to the inactivity of despair ? 
If the experiment has been tried, I beg 
to know the result of it. Can any man 
tell me that he has seen the individual 
who has run the animating course of 
virtue, and reached its termination with 
all the triumphs of success upon his 
forehead? When I speak of virtue, [ 
ask you to feel the mighty import of 
the term: it is setting the law of God 
always before you——it is cherishing the 
love of God as your supreme and reign- 
ing affection—and it is making every 
unfair object of selfishness give way to 
the love of your neighbour, which flows 
from the love of God as its likeness and 
its accompaniment. Have you seen 
any such? J am not asking about the 
worse and the better and the best. You 
will meet with better and worse in the 
robber’s den or in the dungeons of of. 





THE LIVING WATER 





[SERM. 


fended justice. I do not deny that there 
are gradations of character in the world, 
but this does not say but that the world 
is a vast receptacle of sinners, and that — 
the best of these sinners is a sinner 
still. 

Conceive therefore that a man should 
peysist in the delusion I am attempting 
to expose; conceive him to look on- 
heaven asa claim and not as a gift; 
conceive him to put forth all the ener- 
gies of his nature, and all the faculties 
of a most happily endowed constitution 
to the enterprise of making out this 
claim. In other words, let him embark 
himself on a career of firm, resolute, and 
strenuous obedience, and then will you 
see the spectacle of a man trying to win 
a place in Paradise by his works. It 
is quite evident that this man has 
brought down upon himself the very 
principle by which he will be tried in 
the day of reckoning. He surely has 
no right to expect any shelter on that 
day from the Mediatorship of Christ, if 
on this the day of his probation he has 
made a deliberate rejection of all the 
benefits of that Mediatorship. If you 
put the peculiarities of the gospel away 
from you, and take up your chance for 
immortality on another ground, you 
surely cannot complain if that be the 
ground on which the examination of 
you shall be taken up and carried for- 
ward at the time that you stand before 
the judgment-seat. It is the ground 
you have chosen here, and as it is your 
own ground you will be tried upon it 
there ; and if there be any among you, 
my brethren, hardy enough to think 
that you can win the prize of immortal- 
ity by the might and the exercise of 
such attributes of strength and character 
as belong to you—then remember that 
the inquiry on that day will be not 
whether there is evidence that while 
you lived in the world you so lived in 
it as to prove that you accepted of hea- 
ven as an offered gift, but whether you 


‘so lived in it as to have gained and 


substantiated a claim to heaven. In 
the former case you looked to the law, 
and you compared its demands with 
your capabilities, and the result of the 
comparison was such an humbling view 
of the guilt and insufficiency that cov- 
ered you, as led you to feel the need of 


a something else on which your de- 
pendence could be laid; and feeling 
thus you clung to the offered grace of 
the Saviour, and you kept by it. In 
the latter case, you also may look to 
the law and look at the same time to 
your own capabilities of obedience, and 
whether you see the demands of this 
law in all their rigour and in all their 
loftiness. 1 know not; but by the act 
of holding out against the gift. and at- 
tempting to substantiate the claim, you 
have certainly somehow or other come 
to the practical conclusion that you can 
master all its exactions—that you are a 
match for it and for all its command- 
ments and you utterly refuse the senti- 
ment of the Apostle when he tells us of 
what the law cannot do through the 
weakness of the flesh, even that it can- 
not exalt the character to a pure and 
undeviating loyalty. I am not, my 
brethren, speaking of a case that is 
imaginary. ‘The delusion to which I 
am adverting has a very general exist- 
ence in the world, and carries in its 
very essence the great principle of 
legalism. This is a principle natural 
to the human heart; it is a principle 
_ which is ever coming into play through- 
out the intercourse we hold with each 
other, and is upheld and. fostered by 
almost all the transactions of civil so- 
ciety. There is not a more familiar 
feelmg than that of the claim which 
one man has or thinks he has upon 
another. I have lent my neighbour a 
sum of money, and I have a claim upon 
him for repayment. I have done him 
an obliging piece of service, and I have 
a claim upon him for gratitude. I have 
acquitted myself of all that is asked or 
expected from me as a member of so- 
ciety, and I have a claim upon it for 
justice to my reputation and my char- 
acter. ‘he feeling of such claims—the 
consciousness of all that worth and 
merit which entitle you to them—the 
sense of provocation when they are 
withheld from you—the clamorous de- 
mand for equity, and the passionate 
outcry of injured sensibilities when that 
equity is denied—all these may be ob- 
served to give a daily and a perpetual 
exercise to the heart of every man as 
he moves through the relations whether 
of domestic or of general society. It is 


THE LIVING WATER. 


44} 


not to be wondered at that a feeling so 
familiarly and so frequently called forth 
in the transactions between a man and 
his fellows should also insinuate itself 
into the heart, and be called forth in the 
case of transactions that go on between 
aman and his God. When [I look on 
men with a reference to the question of 
what kind of conduct I should maintain 
towards them, the most natural and 
general feeling about this guestion is, 
that I shall give what is due to them, 
and that I shall look for what is due 
from them. When [ look on God with 
a reference to the same subject, nothiny 
more natural and I am sure nothing 
more general than that obstinate prin- 
ciple of legality in virtue of which T 
transfer the very same sentiment about 
Him that I have about my fellows in 
society: I shall give what is due to 
Him, and I shall look for what is due 
from Him. With this sentiment many 
start upon a course of reformation to- 
wards God. and I have no objection that 
they should do so, would they only at 
the same time make a right computation 
of the amount of what is due to the 
Heavenly Lawgiver; would they only 
look at the breadth of His law; would 
they only estimate the degree of His 
rightful ascendency over all the creatures 
He has formed ; would they only, while 
they assimilate Him to man in the cir- 
cumstance that a something is due to 
Him, also distinguish Him from man 
by those very essential circumstances in 
which he differs from them, that He 
made us and He upholds us, and He 
has a claim to the subordination of 
every movement and of every faculty 
which belongs to us; then I should not 
despair after letting them understand 
what the amount of that something due 
to God was—I should not despair of 
convincing them how fearfully hazard- 
ous it is to remain upon the ground on 
which they are standing. Now they 
misjudge the matter altogether if they 
think that, because equal to the’ per- 
formance of those reciprocal duties which 
bind and consolidate the system of hu- 
man society, they are therefore equal to 
the performance of those duties which 
bind together the fellowship of peace 
between God and the creatures who have 
sprung from Him. I should not despair 


442 


of carrying their acquiescence in the 
doctrine that, however well and however 
reputable they may find themselves in 
reference to their fellow-sinners around 
them, they in every one point of obedi- 
ence fall short of the glory of God, and 
are accumulating every day upon their 
heads the guilt of His violated requisi- 
tions—that when assembled around thé 
tribunal which is to put upon them the 
awards of eternity, they will not be tried 
by such principles as are gathered out 
of the constitution of human society— 
they will be tried by those unalterable 
principles of equity which fixedly and 
essentially belong to the cause of God 
on the one hand, and of God’s creatures 
on the other ; and that, therefore, unless 
they are driven out of the legality of 
their feelings and their contemplations 
upon this subject, they are in despite of 
the offered salvation seeking to establish 
such a righteousness of their own as 
never, never can avail them; they are 
pitching at the impracticable aim of 
keeping upsides with a law which, with 
‘all the strenuousness and all the fre- 
quency of their performances, they shall 
never satisfy; they are braving the 
penalties of a code which in its most 
leading particulars they are every day 
breaking—and therefore let them cease 
to wonder any longer that though they 
talk of virtue and multiply their per- 
formances, and are both aiming at and 
domg a number of things which wear 
a semblance and a character of religion, 
the preacher of the gospel should still 
look at them, and, impressed with the 
danger and insecurity of their condition, 
should not be satisfied. 
I have not yet said whether I thought 
-or not, that those people had adequate 
conceptions of the law in all the extent 
and purity which belongs to it. I have 
no hesitation in saying now that it is 
an inadequate conception of this which 
practically les at the bottom of their 
delusion. Did they perceive the law in 
the whole strictness of the obligation 
it lays upon them—did they think aright 
of the truth and majesty of Him who 
imposed it—did they contemplate as 
they ought the unalterable dignity of 
His government, and how for all its 
stability and all its respect.it depended 
on the unfailing obedience of its sub- 


THE LIVING WATER. 


[SERM. 


jects, or on the due execution of its. de- 
fied and violated sanctions upon the 
disobedient—did they carry in their 
minds a very small fraction indeed of 
that high impression of God’s holiness 
and justice which actuates the every 
feeling which works and circulates 
among the hosts of paradise—then 
humbled by a sense of their distance 
and their shortness, and of the mighty 
gulf that lies between the high requisi- 
tions of God and the paltry attainments 
of the very best of them, would every 
one of them be convinced of sin, and be 
convinced of their need of a Saviour 
along with it. 

. By the law is the knowledge of sin, 
says Paul. Without the commandment, 
or without the right sense of the com- 
mandment, I revived; but when the 
commandment came, a right sense had 
visited my heart; when I got to know 
that the law was spiritual, 1 was led to 
perceive how holy and how just and how 
good it was—when the commandment 
came to me in this light, sin revived, and 
I died. 

I have already observed that there 
are only two ways in which we can 
make out a claim to the rewards of the 
law. The first way is by bringing up 
the obedience to the standard of the law. 
This we have already expatiated upon. 
The second way is by brmging down 
the law to the standard of the obedience. 
This, my brethren, we conceive to be 
really and practically the way in which > 
the legalists of this world seek to find 
something like a settlement of peace 
with their consciences. As I said just 
now, they do not! look at the law in all 
the spirituality and greatness of its 
requisitions ; they saften the rigour of 
its exactions—they take up vague and 
indefinite ideas of the indulgence of God, 
in order to evade the close pursuit of his 
purity and his justice—they form a 
standard for themselves, and it is a 
standard degraded by the whole dis- — 
tance of an infinity under the standard 
of that law which was proclaimed by 
God Himself for the homage and obedi- 
ence of .he world that He had called 
into existence. It is not the first but 
the second that is the real and practical 
way in which the rejectors of the gospel 
of Christ contrive to find peace to their 


x} 


consciences, and at the same time to 
retain the system of heaven being a 
claim they are able to make out, rather 
than a gift for which they are indebted 
to a free and unconditional act of libe- 
rality on the part of its dispenser ; or in 
other words, instead of attempting to 
bring up the obedience to the standard 
of the law of heaven—an attempt which 
[ believe that out of Christ and away 
from the influence of His doctrine is 
never made, or at least never persevered 
in—all the men who look upon heaven 
as a claim, and are at the same time 
satisfied themselves, bring down the 
standard of the law to the actual state 
of their obedience. 

Now by so doing you bring down 
the standard of Heaven’s law to a sinful 
obedience ; you pull down the everlast- 
ing principles which give support and 
stability to the throne of the Almighty’s 
justice ; you make the tribunal of God 
speak a language which would degrade 
any court of law or administration in 
the world. As we can get none to act 
up to the purity of our requisition, let 
us bestow our reward on the best we 
ean, find. Our dignity and our truth 
have been most disgracefully trampled 
upon—let us take the affront, and soften 
it all over by an act of compromise and 
connivance—let us smile on the male- 
factor who has made a mockery of our 
government. It is true we hate guilt, 
and we have uttered against it our 
solemn denunciations, but these denun- 
ciations have all been treated with con- 
tempt, and we find it convenient to 
recall them. We would pass an act of 
forgiveness, but this will not satisfy the 
criminals at our bar. They do not 
supplicate a gift, they challenge a re- 
ward; and we. by accommodating to 
the high tone of their pretensions must 
bring down our law to their obedience, 
and say that we are satisfied. That 
guilt which we cannot look upon with- 
out abhorrence we are called upon to 
welcome with the language of approba- 
tion and flattery, and the high truth and 
harmony of Heaven must be all given 
up to the pride and ignorance of those 
who rank among the humbiest of Hea- 
ven’s offsprmg. Knough of this, my 
brethren; it will positively not bear a 
hearing ‘Take the gift upon the foot- 


THE LIVING WATER 


443 


ing on which it is offered to you. It is 
not a claim; andif you misconceive the 
free grace of the gospel, you either 
acquiesce in a low standard of obedi- 
ence, or your life becomes one restless 
and unceasing struggle in pursuit of an 
object you will never reach: “ Not by 
works of righteousness which we have 
done; but according to His mercy hath 
he saved us.” View your salvation in 
this light and’ it comes amply within 
the reach of all, and at the taking of all 
who will believe in the reality of the 
offer. View it in any other, and you 
throw it at an unattainable distance from 
the strongest and soundest and health- 
iest of the species. He never will be 
able to fulfil the conditions of the first 
covenant by the works of his own 
righteousness. The terrors of this vio- 
Jated covenant are upon him, and by 
turning from the unspeakable gift in 
this the accepted time, he aggravates 
these terrors by.the weight of another 
sentence and another threatening— 
“ How shall he escape if he neglect so 
great a salvation ?” 

I call upon you here, my brethren, 
to remark how different in amount of 
duteous and reverential morality towards 
God is the feeling of those who look 
forward to heaven on the footing of the 
gospel. from the feeling of those who 
look forward to it on the footing of a 
presumptuous legalism. The former 
look to the actual state of their obedi- 
ence. and the impression it makes upon 
them is, that this obedience is not good 
enough for God—it has not rendered 
enough of homage to His law—it has not 
come up to their conceptions of that purity 
and of that loveliness and of that devotion 
and of that good will to all around them 
which form the attributes and the ac- 
complishment of virtue. It is not ade- 
quate to their sentiment of what is due 
to our Maker, or of what is equal to a 
full measure of righteousness, or of 
what man ought to be in his heart and 
in his habits and throughout the whole 
currency of his life and conversation. 
To link our prospects of immortality 
with such an obedience as this, it would 
be necessary that we should not feel so 
high a sentiment as we actually enter- 
tain of what is due to God. It would 
be necessary that we should have a 


444 


grosser and a scantier conception of the 
measure of righteousness. It would be 
necessary for us to think that it is quite 
enough for man to be just as he is, and 
that we need neither to fear nor to regret 
though his heart and his habits have 
not reached a nobler and,a steadier ele- 
vation. Now, what is this but to say, 
my brethren, that while the advocates 
for heaven, as a claim. arrogate to them- 
selves the whole credit and distinction 
of being the men of morality and good 
works, and charge the advocates of 
heaven, as a gift, with a negligent style 
of sentiment on the subject of duties 
and of practical righteousness—it is, in 
fact, a stricter and a purer and a ioftier 
estimate of virtue in all its greatness, 
and of obedience in all its rigour, which 
lies at the bottom of the humble acqui- 
escence of the latter in the peculiarities 
of the gospel. It is just because they 
think so highly of God and of His right 
to the lowly subordination of all His 
creatures, that they despair of ever 
reaching His rewards on the footing of 
having followed all the behests, or of 
having acted up to all the requirements 
of loyalty. The humility of the Chris- 
tian faith and a high tone of duteous 
feeling towards God, so far from being 
what I know a very large class of cold 
and moderate Christians conceive them 
to be—so far from being on terms of 
contradiction with each other, do, in fact, 
communicate—the first to the second, 
and the second back again to the first 
a mutual fervency and intensity. Give 
me to-see the law in all the breadth of 
its requisitions, and in all the solemnity 
of its high and unalterable sanctions, 
and there is nothing more calculated 
than such a sight to stir up within me 
the pervading conviction of sin. When 
the commandment came to Paul sin 
revived. (Give me to be penetrated with 
this conviction—and nothing more cal- 
culated to shake me out of all my pre- 
sumptuous dependence on heaven as a 
claim—nothing more calculated to dis- 
tance me from a pretension so lofty— 
nothing more calculated to make me 
pass upon myself, at the tribunal of 
conscience, a sentence of condemnation, 
and lead me to look upon every hope 
that rested on the foundation of merit as 
blasted and undone. When the com- 





THE LIVING WATER. 


[SERM. 


mandment came, sin revived, and I 
died. Give me to feel that out of Christ 
I am in-a state of death, that the wrath 
of God is ever abiding on me, and that 
there is nothing to shield my guilty 
head from the arrows of His righteous 
indignation—and nothing, my brethren, 
more fitted to reduce me to the excla- 
mations of despair, or to the anxious 
inquiries after a place of refuge. or to 
the earnest attempt of casting about for 
one who might hide me in some pavil- 
ion of safety till these billows shall over- 
pass. “QO wretched man that I am! 
who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death?” Give me a man thus de- 
voting himself to the employment of 
seeking, and if there be any truth in the 
saying, that they who seek shall find, 
there is nothing more calculated than 
this to guide his footsteps to Him who 
is arefuge from the tempest and a hiding- 
place from the storm. “O wretched 
man, who shall deliver me from the 
body of this death? I thank God, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 

Now what is it, my brethren, that 
has carried us forward to this conclu- 
sion? What is it that has thus stripped 
us of all selfdependence, and brought 
us in holy and grateful acknowledg- 
ment to the Saviour? What is it that 
has thus led us to the foot of the cross, 
and made us to feel that there, and there 
alone, do hope and pardon and reconcil- 
iation emanate upon a guilty world? 
Was it that low sense of morality which 
is so often imputed to your men of evan- 
gelical doctrine and piety that guided 
our footsteps to such a landing place ? 
Yes, my brethren, it was a low sense 
of the actual morality of man that origi- 
nated the whole of this process; but 
along with this there was also a high 
sense of the incumbent morality of man 
—there was the very feeling which act- 
uated the apostle Paul, and gave direc- 
tion to the whole line of reasoning by 
which he was conducted from the doc- 
trine of the spirituality of the law to the 
doctrine of justification by faith alone. 
It was setting up a high standard of 
virtue upon the degraded state of per- 
formance which led to this as the result 
of the masterly and invincible argument 
that runs through his Epistle to the 
Romens; and therefore do I repeat it, 


- 


Pe THE LIVING WATER. 


= 


my brethren, and recommend it to you 
as a proposition which cannot be enough 
laboured and enough insisted on that the 
theology which receives eternal life as 
a gift and acceptance with God as an 
act of gratuitous kindness, and transla- 
tion into His favour as a matter of free 
grace offered to all and at the taking of 
all through the appointed Mediator— 
that this theology, so far from being 
blind to morality, so far from having 
any obtuseness about the claims of duty 
and of the law, so far from being devoid 
of reverence for its authority over man, 
makes all this to be the starting princi- 
ple of its faith, and proceeds throughout 
the whole career of its reasonings on the 
august character of virtue, and the extent 
of its immutable obligations. 

And this, my brethren, conducts me 
to another effect of that system which 
sets up for heaven as a claim to be made 
out by man. It is not a system of ab- 
stract doctrines that | am now combat- 
ing—it is a practical error by which the 
consciences of men are deluded into the 
feeling of peace when there is no peace. 
IT want to convince them how much 
they aggravate the hatefulness of all 
their pigmy and superficial obedience 
by this act of false confidence on their 
part. Sure I-am that they would both 
feel and understand it if they were 
placed in the very same predicament in 
which they place God. Did one of their 
fellow-men fall grievously short of his 
reverence or his justice towards them, 
would not that bare act be enough of 
itself to inflict upon their bosoms the 
feeling of provocation? Now, think 
how this feeling would be affected if the 
man who had thus injured you dis- 
covered no sense of the wrong he had 
inflicted—if he carried it towards you 
with as much tranquillity and unconcern 
as if he had done for you and towards 
you all you had any title to expect. If 
his conduct speak it to be his actual 
feeling and his sincere opinion that he 
had treated you just as you deserved, 
and that there was nothing in some 
palpable misdoing of which he had been 
guilty that conferred upon you any right 
to challenge or to remonstrate with him 
—think you not that this want of feel- 
ing for his misconduct towards you 
would aggravate your feeling of provo- 





“445 


cation towards him? Have you no 
recollection, my brethren, in your past 
experience within this department of 
human intercourse, that when a neigh- 
bour injures you there is nothing that 
goes farther to soften the whole impres- 
sion of it, and to pluck from the injury 
its sting, than a becoming contrition 
and an adequate sense of its enormity 
on his part ? and, on the contrary. should 
there be no such contrition—if the man 
who has wronged you evinces no feeling 
of compunction, and utters no acknowl- 
edgment of guilt—if he still continues 
to carry it towards you in a way that 
bespeaks him to be quite callous and 
insensible about the evil of his misdo- 
ings—is not this, my brethren, the very 
ingredient which gives its chief bitter- 
ness to the whole provocation? You 
perhaps are willing to be reconciled; 
you are ready, even as God is with us 
all, to forgive if herepent. But he feels 
not that he stands in need of repentance ; 
he thinks not that he is an object for 
forgiveness; he is not conscious that he 
has done you an injury, and will persist 
in his secure and smiling and confident 
approach after all that you have suffered 
at his hand. O,my brethren, is not all 
this fitted to deepen the injury, and to 
widen the breach, and to make the con- 
troversy more irreparable, and to kindle 
in the heart of the injured man a more 
festering impression of rancour and dis- 
content than ever? All this is very 
plain, and it should just be as plain that 
when sinners entertain the hope of 
heaven as a claim, they, by the very act 
of doing so, aggravate in God’s sight 
the whole of their sinfulness. If they 
refuse it on the footing of a boon, they 
carry the insulting sentiment along 
with them that they have done nothing 
towards their Maker which stands in 
need of any forgiveness, or of any atone- 
ment. It is clear that with all their 
talk about virtue, they have at least a 
very obtuse feeling about the glory and 
the extent of it; for it isa very hum- 
ble portion indeed of its attainments 
which satisfies them. It is clear that 
they aggravate excessively all the guilt 
they have contracted by being so blind 
as they are, so insensible as they are to 
the malignity and extent of their guilt ; 
and thus it is, that while the gospel is 


446 


freely offered to all as a defence against 
the threatenings of a violated law, the 
rejection of the gospel imparts to all 
those violations a greater foulness and 
enormity than ever, and will muster up 
against those who add security to sin a 
more scowling array of terrors than be- 
fore, and will bring upon them a deeper 
and a sorer condemnation from the maj- 
esty of the offended Lawgiver. How 
shall they escape if they neglect so great 
salvation ? 

But there is another class of profess- 
ing Christians who labour under the 
same misconception—that the salvation 
of the Gospel is not a gift, but a claim, 
but who, unlike the former, instead of 
converting this idea into an argument 
for false security, convert it into an ar- 
gument for despair. The former looked 
at their own performance. and were sat- 
isfied—the latter look at their own per- 
formance too, and looking at it with a 
more intelligent and discerning eye, 
they are not satisfied. ‘There is a lurk- 
ing sentiment about them, that salvation 
is, somehow or other, the reward of their 
righteousness—and the conscience, faith- 
ful to its office, says that this righteous- 
ness they want. This delusion throws 
a darkening veil over all their anticipa- 
tions of futurity. They know not the 
gift of God, and in the face of an offer, 
held out without any exception or re- 
serve to all who labour and are heavy 
laden—do they refuse to be comforted, 
and give themselves up to all the agita- 
tions of religious melancholy. This is 
a peculiar case, and it often bids defi- 
ance to al] the management of human 
wisdom and human experience. An 
argument sometimes employed for sooth- 
ing these unhappy agitations, is, Why 
be discouraged ?—you are not so great 
a sinner as you apprehend yourself to 
be, and certainly not worse than your 
neighbours around. To prefer such an 
argument as this, is to chime in with 
the very principle which it should be 
your first object to extirpate. It is not 
because you are not so great a sinner that 
I would have you to be comforted ; but 
it is because Jesus Christ is so great a 
Saviour: it is not the smallness of the 
sin, but the greatness of Him who died 
for it. Iwould have you to be satisfied, 
but not with yourself, for this would be 


THE LIVING WATER. 


[SERM. 


to lull you asleep by the administration 
of a poisoned. opiate. I would have you 
to listen to that loud and widely sound- 
ing call—* Look unto me all ye ends 
of the earth, and be saved.” I would - 
have you to look unto Jesus; and if 
truth and friendship have a power to 
charm you into tranquillity, you have 
them here. I would never cease to 

press the salvation of the gospel upon 
you as a gift; and as faith comes by 
hearing, and hearing by tie word of 
God, I would call into action these ap- 
pointed instruments for producing in 
the heart of the despairing sinner the 
faith which accepts the offer, and which 
holds it fast. I cannot ascend into 
heaven to bring down Jesus again upon 
the world, that you may hear the kind- 
ness which fell from His lips, and see 
the couintenance most frankly expressive 
of it; but [ can bring the word which 
He left behind Him nigh unto you. J 
can assure you, upon the faith of that 
word which never lies, that what He 
was on earth He is still in heaven ; and 
if in the history of the New Testament 
He was never found to send a diseased 
petitioner disappointed away; be as- 
sured_that when He took up His body 
to the right hand of the everlasting 
throne, He took up all His kind and 
warm and generous sympathies along 
with Him. I cannot show you Him in 
person, but I can reveal Him to the eye 
of your mind as sitting there; and if 
you array Him in any other characters 
than in those of love and mildness and 
long-suffering, you do Him an injustice. 
He no longer speaks in His own per- 
son, but He speaks in the person of 
those to whom He has committed the 
work of reconciliation ; and in the con- 
fidence that He will not falsify His own 
commission, or fall back: by a single 
inch from the terms of it, we stand here 
as the ambassadors for Christ, as though 
God did beseech you by us, we pray 
you, in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled 
to God. I would have you to know the 
gift of God. I would have you to look 
upon it in the simplicity of an offer, on 
the one hand, and of a joyful and con- 
fiding acceptance on the other. When 
He was on earth great multitudes fol- 
lowed Him, and He healed them. 
Come to Him with your disease—the 


x) 


disease of a guilty and despairing mind. 
Do not think that either the will or the 
power of lealing you is wanting. You 
approach Him in the most peculiar and 
in the greatest of His capacities. when 
you approach Him as the physician of 
souls; and be assured that the voice 
which He uttered in the hearing of His 
countrymen is of standing authority and 
signification to the very latest ages of the 
world—*‘ Come unto me, all ye that 
labour and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest.” Yes! if rest is to be 
found atall,it must be given. Itis upon 
_ the footing of a gift that I offer it to you. 
Not that you are worthy to receive the 
present, but that it is a present worthy 
of His generosity to bestow. Take it. 
There is not a single passage in the 
Bible to exclude you from this act of 
confidence. Be not afraid—only believe 
—and according to your faith, so will 
it be done unto you. 

It is remarkable enough, my brethren, 
that the false peace of him who is satis- 
fied with the measure of his own per- 
formances, and the disquietude of him 
who wastes himself away in the agita- 
tions of religious melancholy. should both 
have one common ingredient. With 
both ot them there is a strong adhering 
“mpression in their minds, that in order 
to deserve heaven they must somehow 
or other make out their claim to it. 
The former underrates the expense and 
the difficulty of making out this claim ; 
and on the strength of a few peaceable 
and neighbourly accomplishments, will 
he cherish al] the tranquillity of hope, 
even though his heart be alienated from 
God, and in every one point of its exac- 
tions he not only falls short of, but flies 
in the direct face of His spiritual law. 
The latter brings the law to a truer es- 
timate—to a larger view of the extent 


and spirituality of its requirements. per- | 


ceives most distinctly the shortness and 


the unworthiness of which the other is | 
insensible, but sharing with him in the! 
conception that heaven must be prose- | 
cuted as a claim. he consumes all his | 


energies. and fritters away all his com- 


fort, and drags out the days of a dark | 


and wearisome: existence in an enter- 
prise through which no device of human 
wisdom and no strength of human ex- 
ertion will ever successfully carry him. 


THE LIVING WATER. 





447 


It is not, perhaps, generally adverted to, 
but it is not the less true, that there re- 
mains in the heart of every melancholy 
inquirer a strong taint and remainder 
of legalism. What else is it that forms 
an obstacle to that peace he is so ear- 
nestly aspiring after? Why should he 
feel such an obstinate and immovable 
discomfort on the subject of his own 
sins and deficiencies? Why is he con- 
tinually postponing his confidence in 
Grod, and his peaceful fellowship with 
(rod, till somehow or other he gets these 
sins and deficiencies to depart away from 
him? Wherefore is it that he will not 
malce the transition which the bidding of 
the Gospel fairly warrants him to make, 
and.in virtue of which he may come to 
the Saviour this moment.as he is. and 
enter into acceptance with God through 
the open door of Christ’s Mediatorship ; 
and for the dark and terrible emotions | 
which are now raising a tempest in his 
inner man, why does he not take hold 
of the offered forgiveness, and have a 
rejoicing sense of the favour of heaven— 
with a mind at rest from all its fears ? 
Why is he not even now in that state 
of serenity and enjoyment which would 
arise from a grateful sense of the Re- 
deemer’s services, and from the quiet 
assurance of a firm and confident recon- 
ciliation? Why, my brethren, the rea- 
son is just because he does not see 
forgiveness to be an offer—just because 
he is blind to that most essential char- 
acter of the Gospel dispensation, that it 
is all a matter of grace—just because 
there is a darkening shroud which man- 
tles from the eye of his spirit that be- 
nignant feature of Christianity, in virtue 
of which there beams from it the freest 
and kindliest expression of good-will to 
the children of men. I shall at least 
tell him one thing, that on his present 
track of mere exertion he never will find 
his way to that peace after which he is 
so earnestly aspiring. I want not to 
discourage his exertion; but I want to 
let him know that if he ever should 
come to solid tranquillity of heart about 
the concerns of his immortality, it will 
be by that very sight of the Gospel 
which I am now labouring to set before 
him; it will be by the acceptance of 
all its privileges and of all its blessings 
on the footing o. a present; it will be 


448 


by perceiving that pardon is gratui- 
tously held out to him; and there is no 
one point of reformation to which he 
can ever carry himself that will entitle 
-him to cherish the expectation of God’s 
favour on another ground, or to feel 
anything else than that it is just the 
offered pardon which forms all the de- 
pendence he can build upon and all the 
security he can cling to. Why then 
postpone by a single moment longer the 
translation of your mind out of this state 
of darkness into the marvellous leht 
of the Gospel? Why not hearken dil- 
igently even now to God’s declaration 
of Himself, as God in Christ reconciling 
the world, and not imputing to them 
their trespasses? The simple accept- 
ance of the gift will be the footing at last 
on which the peace of an established 
Christianity is to take possession of 
your hearts, if ever it take possession 
of them at all. Why, then, at the in- 
stant of time in which I am addressing 
you, keep any longer at a distance from 
the gift, and hold out any longer so sul- 
lenly and so suspiciously against the 
frank and generous offer of it? Why 
- work for another day separate from 
Christ when Christ says to you all, Come 
to me now and I will lift the burden of 
despondency away from you—ay, and 
cause you even to work with a spring 
and an energy of performance to which 
you will ever remain a stranger while 
the heavy load of your present fears and 
your present discomforts still continues 
to oppress you? It is by an act of 
trust in and willing obedience to such a 
eall as this that the grand transition will 
be made from the spirit of bondage to 
the spirit of adoption. You will not. my 
brethren, be in a state of greater readi- 
ness for effecting this transition by per- 
sisting in the spirit of bondage for some 
weeks or months longer from the time 
at which I at now addressing you. 
Let it therefore be your business now 
to look to the Gospel in its character 
of freeness—to lay hold of it agreeably 
to the urgency of its own invitations— 
to keep fast by it as an assurance of 
good-will, the fulfilment of which is unto 
all and upon all that believe. Sure I 


THE LIVING WATER. 





[SERM. 


pel, you look on heaven as a claim, the 
charm which now binds down your 
spirit to melancholy as by a spell of re- 
sistless operation would instantly be dis- 
sipated, and you would close with the 
offered gift; and just in proportion as 
you believed the truths of the Bible 
would you have quietness and joy in 
the felt possession of it; and from the * 
moment that the ignorance of my text 
was chased away, and you began to 
know the gift of God, from that moment 
would this verse of Scripture have its 
whole effect and fulfilment upon you— 
“ Acquaint thyself with God, and be at 
peace.” 

But, again, the ignorance imputed to 
the woman of Samaria in the words, 
“ Hadst thou known the gift of God,” 
does not le merely in the ignorance of 
its being a gift, but in the ignorance of 
what the gift is. Before taking up the 
particular expression into which our 
Saviour has cast it, let me submit to 
your attention this undoubted truth, that 
eternal life is the gift of God, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, it does 
not occur to me that there is room to 
complain of ignorance, in as far as the 
bare and general information of this last- 
mentioned passage is concerned. It 1s 
universally known, that eternal life is 
the great object which the Gospel pro- 
poses to obtain for allits followers. Men 
may not be aware that this eternal life 
is a gift; but this is a misconception 
which I have already attempted to dis- 
pose of. They are in general aware, 
that whether viewed in the light of a 
gift or a claim, eternal life is the termi- 
nation and inheritance of all who have 
an interest in the promises of the better 
covenant. ‘They may not be so feelingly 
alive to the greatness of this subject as 
its importance demands. ‘They may 
carry about with them a very faint and 
very feeble conception of it. It may be 
seldom present to their minds, and when 
it is present the impression of it may be 
too slender to overpower the domineer- 
ing influence of the present scene and 
the present temptation. All this is very 
general; but as far as my observation 
goes, the positive ignorance of everlast- 


am that could we detach from your bo-| ing happiness in heaven being the final 


som that poisonous ingredient of senti- | 


lot of every true Christian, is not general. 


ment by which separately from the Gos-| Men know it, though they do not feel 


x.] 


it in sentiment, nor proceed upon it in 
action and in behaviour. 

But, it may be said, if a man knows 
that “Eternal life is the gift of God, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord”—is not 
this to know the sum and the substance 
of Christian Doctrine? Is not this a 
compendious expression, which embraces 
in its ample grasp all that is important ? 
and after this is fairly fixed in the creed 
and understanding of a Christian, is 
there anything more in the way of teach- 
ing or explanation which remains to be 
done for him? Thisisa highly curious 
and a highly interesting question, and, 
if we had time for it, might lead to a 
lengthened discussion upon a very inter- 
esting subject. Let me remark, how- 
ever, that it seems to be very much the 
tendency of speculative Christians to run 
up their religious faith into one sweep- 
ing principle, and into one short but 
ample proposition. This one thing, 
whatever it is, is made to stand upon 
the foreground of all their speculations. 
Whatever be the subject betwixt you, 


THE LIVING WATER. 


you are exposed to a never-varying re- | 


currence to the favourite maxim. It is 
very true that there is a subordination 
in truth, and none so ignorant as not 
to know that one truth may embrace 
and carry another along with it. But 
what I have to complain of is, that this 
exclusive attention to the one reigning 
principle of their orthodoxy, instead of 
taking in the other truths, has the actual 
effect in their mind of keeping them out. 
Their wisdom, unlike that of the scribe 


who has treasured up things new and | 


old, admits of no number, no variety in 
its objects. Instead of repairing to the 
law and the testimony, with the docility 
_ of children, ready to embrace them in 
all their variety, and in all their particu- 
lars, their great exercise is to subdue 
them all to their own systematic ar- 
rangement and compel them to a forced 
subordination to their own riveted and 
antecedent principle. If this be not call- 
ing another man master, and acting up- 
on an authority which is above: Christ, 
and beyond Him, it is something very 
like it. I hope, before I am done, to 
make this a little clearer by pointing 
your attention to one most malignant 
example of it; but, in the mean time, 
does it not strike you, that in the whole 


57 





449 


of this proceeding there is a complexion 
of thought, and a train of speculations 
not to be found in the pure and original 
record—that the Christianity which ex- 
ists in such a mind is not a fair tran- 
script of the Christianity which exists 
in the New Testament; and [ refer it 
to the conscience of all such, whether 
the act of mind by which they appro- 
priate a doctrine and an article be a sim- 
ple act of submission to the saying of 
Christ—be a casting down of their own 
lofty imaginations, and bringing every 
thought into the captivity of His obedi- 
ence ¢ 

To take up the question then—if 
“Kternal life being the gift of God 
through Jesus Christ our Lord,” formed 
the whole of God’s communication—if, 
instead of a Bible made up of various 
particulars, and containing in it things 
new and old, the whole of the divine 
message had been comprised in one 
short note or intimation, by which we 
were given to understand, that the pro- 
longation of our lives to eternity was 
granted tous by God through the instru- 
mentality of Christ Jesus—this infor- 
mation, general as it is, if thought 
enough by God to give, should have 
been thought enough by us to receive; 
and on the principle of not being wise 
above that which is written, it would 
have been our part thankfully to have 
acquiesced, and humbly to have re- 
strained our curiosity within the limits 
assigned to it. But, in point of fact, 
God has not thought the information of 
this single sentence enough for us—He 
has given us more, and this more is ex- 
panded over the broad surface of a vol- 
uminous record. This is quite decisive. 
We should not be wise above that which 
is written, but we should be wise up to 
that which is written. We should fol- 
low God respectfully through all his 
revelations, and our faith in Him should 
be as varied and as particular as His 
communications tous. We should make 
ourselves acquainted with all Scripture 
—for all Scripture is said to be profita- 
ble; and if, instead of looking fairly 
into all its parts, and following it with 
cheerful submission through all its vari- 
eties, we fasten upon one principle, and 
then give ourselves up to our own specu- 
lations and our own analogies, instead 


450 


_ of acting the part of the teachable child, 
_ who takes his lesson as it is presented 
to him, we are making the wisdom of 
man carry it over the wisdom of heaven. 
and at the very time too, perhaps. that 
orthodoxy is our watch-word, and pu- 
rity of doctrine is our boast and our re- 
joicing. 

Now the effect of this observation 
should but send you to your Bibles, 
and my prayer to heaven is that these 
Bibles may become your daily delight 
and your daily exercise. so as to make 
you wise unto salvation through faith 
which is in Christ Jesus. I cannot 
in the compass of one sermon give you 
a comprehensive view of the whole 
truth as it is in Jesus; but as to this 
eternal life which He has purchased 
for men, there are two capital points of 
information which I cannot keep back 
from you. The eternal life which He 
has purchased for men. you wll observe 
that He has purchased for sinners, and 
the first capital pomt which He has se- 
cured for them is the pardon of their 
sins by the merit of His atoning sac- 
rifice. I know that to this very hour 
the cross of Christ is a stumbling-block, 
and that with certain habits of specu- 
lation, the taste and the prejudice of 
many are in arms against it. They 
are willing to receive Christ in the 
general form of their Mediator—they 
will acquiesce in the doctrine so far, 
and feel no repugnance to eternal life 
as the gift of God, through Jesus Christ 
our Lord; but the power of the peace- 
speaking blood they will not under- 
stand; and why. say they. will you 
step beyond the limits of this passage 
for the purpose of tacking so offensive 
an addition to it? For this best of 
reasons, I answer, that God has been 
pleased to go beyond the communica- 
tion of this passage by tacking to it so 
many more passages which contain this 
addition. I call upon them to havea 
care, lest they be serving two masters, 
and thus be trying to make a compro- 
mise betwixt the word of God and their 
own fancy. J warn them, that to be 
Christians altogether, they must, if ne- 
cessary, cut off a right hand or a right 
eye; and if there be any darling cor- 
ruption of their own which opposeth it- 
self to the doctrine of the cross, I appeal 


“THE LIVING WATER. 











[SERM. 


to their consciences, while I repeat to 
them the following passages with,which 
I confront it :—* Justified freely by His 
grace through the redemption which is 
in Christ Jesus whom God has set 
forth to be a propitiation through faith 
in his blood.” He hath appeared to 
put away sin by the sacrifice of Him- 
self’ So Christ was once offered to 
bear the sins of many.”—* Who His 
own self bare our sins in His own body’ 
on the tree ;” and lastly, because we do 
not wish to detain you, and not because 
we have arrived at the end of the Script- 
ure testimonies, “Christ hath given 
Himself for us an offering and a sacri- 
fice to God for a sweet smelling savour.” 
I offer no commentary—I confine my- 
self to a simple exhibition of the Bible, 
and upon the strength of what has been 
exhibited, I call upon the avowed ene- 
mies of the atonement to cast down 
their lofty imagination. —I come back 
upon those professing Christians who 
look upon their own performances. and 
think they have done enough, and put 
it to their consciences now whether God 
thinks so. I ask them to look at that 
grand and mysterious movement which 
was made in heaven, when the eternal 
Son left the bosom of His Father. and 
a choir of heaven’s host sung His ad- 
vent to this lower world—and for what 
purpose? ‘To magnify that law which 
you make so light of, and to make 
honourable that which you have dis- 
graced and trampled upon. O let me 
put it to the consciences of those men 
who, satisfied with their own perform- 
ances, look forward on the strength of 
them to a smooth transition through 
the valley of death, and an entrance - 
of triumph into the land of immortal- 
ity. If their performances be enough, 
what meaneth this mysterious sacri- 
fice? Where the use and where the 
virtue of the atonement? ‘To what end 
the agonies of that illustrious sufferer, 
on whose death the eye of prophecy 
throughout the whole of her magnifi- 
cent career, from the first generation of 
the world down to the closing of the 
Old Testament, was ever pointed as 
the prominent object of her contempla- 
tions? Think you that all this was 
for no substantial object in the coun- 
sels of heaven? or that the decease 


x] 


which was accomplished at Jerusalem, 
and of which the simple and touching 
memorials are so soon to be set evi- 
dently before you, carries with it no in- 
fluence, and brings the accomplishment_ 
of no busy and important design along’ 
with it? Ah. my brethren, its mean- 
ing was to make an end of transgres- 
sion; and that every one of you, whose 
life, in spite of all your security, has 
been one continued course of transgres- 
sion, might, through the blood of the 
everlasting covenant, have the remem- 
brance of them all washed away. Its 
meaning was to bring in an everlast- 
ing righteousness, that you, casting off 
all dependence on your own fancied 
attainments, might rest the whole of it 
upon an immovable foundation; and 
rest assured, that you will never enter 
with an unfaltering heart into the pres- 
ence of God; you will never know 
what it is to have light and comfort in 
prayer; you will never taste the sweets 
of the spirit of adoption; you will never 
be delivered from all the darkening re- 
mainders of fear and of suspicion which 
still chase out from your bosom the 
light of the reconciled countenance and 
the joys of the Christian salvation ; 
you will never, in the whole course of 
your earthly existence, have firm assur- 
ance toward God, or be able to talk 
with Him as one talketh with a friend, 
till that time cometh when you shall 
transfer your confidence from yourself 
to the Saviour who died for you; and 
brought into peace with God through 
Him who was offered the just for the 
unjust, you have His merits to plead 
with the Lawgiver, and His interces- 
ston to shield you from His righteous 
indignation. 
I turn now to those professing Chris- 
tians who look at their own perform- 
ances, and are not satisfied with them- 
selves, and call upon them to think of 
the mighty satisfaction that has been 
made for them by another. Let them 
_ point their eye to the blood of the atoning 
_ sacrifice, and in its peace-speaking power 
_ they will feel a consolation and a charm 
. which no lame or feeble generality is 
ever able to impress. I ask them—why 
- persist in this sullen despondency ? why 
.. keep so intolerably by their fears ? why 
is the charm of a beseeching God and 


THE LIVING WATER. 


-. 451 


of the mighty expedient that He has.set 
up for the removal and utter extinction 
of the gulf between Him and His crea- 
tures—why is this so obstinately with- 
stood by them? I have tried to cheer 
you out of this leaden and oppressive 
melancholy ; I have tried to arouse you 
out of it; I have tried to win you out 
of it. and if possible to dissolve it by 
the language of smiling invitation. But 
I do more—I try to reproach you out 
of it. This is what the Bible does. and 
what a minister of the Bible is warranted 
in doing also. By refusing the comforts 
of the Christian faith, you make God a 
lar; you repudiate the testimony that 
He gives of His Son; you give Him 
no credit for the kindness that He is so 
largely and so liberally manifesting ; in 
behalf of all who will; you strip the 
great atonement of its power ; you refuse 
to ascribe glory and honour to thaf*re- 
demption from which you take away 
all it you take the surenesses of its un- 
failing promises away from it; you 
return a cold and unwelcome look to all 
its invitations ; and those words of which 
it is said that heaven and earth shall 
pass away ere they pass away, you suf- 
fer them to fall upon your ear, and. to 
have as little ‘effect upon you as if they 
were without truth and without signifi- 
cincy. 

I have now come to our Saviour’s own 
specific description of what the gift-is. 
He calls it living water; and to make 
you understand what this living water 
is, we have nothing more to do than 
repeat that verse of John where our 
Saviour says, “ If any man shall believe 
in me, out of him shall flow rivers. of 
living water ;” and it is added, “ This 
spake He of the Spirit, which they that 
believe on Him should receive ; for the 
Holy Ghost was not yet given, because 
that Jesus was not yet glorified.” Now 
observe, my brethren, how I connect 
this second piece of information with 
the former. Are there some who yield 
a kind of general acquiescence in the 
New Testament, without any specific 
attention of the mind to the doctrine:of 
the New Testament throughout all. its 
verses? There are some who think 
they believe in the lump, but who prove 
that there is no reality in,the belief, by 
the act of shrinking from: the details. 


452 


There are some of these general Chris- 
tians to whom’ there is nothing unpal- 
atable in the wide and summary an- 
nouncement that eternal life is somehow 
or other obtained for us by the instru- 
mentality of Christ Jesus as a mediator ; 
but who feel all the revoltings of the 
natural enmity when you come to the 
separate items and the distinct parts of 
this mediatorship. I may not be speak- 
ing to the experience of a single tenth 
of the people now before me; but it is 
right for a minister to have his eye 
upon that whole field of humanity that 
he is called to cultivate ; and [am quite 
sure that there exists a very numerous 
class of decent and lukewarm professors 
of the gospel, who, while they keep by 
the grand generality of the doctrine of 
eternal hfe through Jesus Christ our 
Lord, still mix up along with it a kind 
of practical system for the attainment 
of eternal life, which keeps out of view 
and out of influence entirely any distinct 
or practical reference to the priesthood 
of Jesus Christ, or to the great atone- 
ment He has made for the sins of those 
who believe in Him. Now, the way to 
argue these people out of their meagre 
and superficial Christianity, is just to 
take the Bible and turn up its pages 
along with them—to tell them that all 
their general reverence for the book is 
nothing buta mockery and a seinblance, 
if they do not open the book and run a 
simple and unwinking eye over all the 
matter that is contained in 1t—to arrest 
them at every particular passage by 
which the doctrine of the sacrifice, and 
of justification through faith in that 
sacrifice, is made known to us, and 
stopping the finger on each distinct 
clause of information, to challenge the 
belief just because the information is 
there. 

The heaven which Christ purchased 
for sinners they never can enter until 
they are made meet for it. This is the 
second capital point of information which 
I proposed to come forward with. <A 
sinner to get eternal life must obtain 
forgiveness through faith in the blood 
of the atoning sacrifice; and, again, a 
sinner to get eternal life must obtain 
purification and holiness through the 
operation of the Spirit, which is given 
to them that believe. There are pro- 


THE LIVING WATER. 


[SERM. 


fessing Christians who acquiesce in the 
general doctrine of eternal life through 
Jesus Christ our Lord, and at the same 
time refuse the first point of information ; 
and, in the same manner, there are pro- 
fessing Christians who acquiesce in the 
same general doctrine, and do not refuse 
the first point of information, but who 
refuse the second. They deny the ne- 
cessity of personal holiness, and feel not 
merely a cold indifference, but fee] a 
positive dislike to this undoubted truth, 
that whom God justifieth, them He also 
sanctifieth. This repugnance to the 
sound teaching which is according to 
godliness, breaks out into a thousand 
displays. It appears in the life. It 
may be seen in that act of mind by 
which many a deceiver has been known 
to couple with the doctrine of Christ’s 
sufficiency, a feeling of security in the 
commission of sin. ~ Ministers have felt 
it to their own mortifying experience, 
when, at the very time that they were 
standing at the death bed of a parishion- 
er, and prayer fell like music upon the 
ear of the dying man, they have detected 
him in the utterance of falsehood, and 
have made the galling discovery that 
theft was practised in his family with 
his knowledge and his approbation. To 
add to the mischievous and unmanage- 
able inveteracy of the error, it has as- 
sumed all the shape and appearance of 
a system—it has put on the semblance 
of orthodoxy—a set of quirks and dis- 
tinctions have been made to supersede 
the broad, urgent, and impressive sim- 
plicity of apostolical truth. A teacher 
cannot come forward with the good 
works which Paul willed that he should 
affirm constantly, but there are hearers 
now-a-day who, instead of listening to 
take it in, throw themselves into a de- 
fensive attitude for the purpose of ward- 
ing it off ‘To conciliate such hearers 
he must offer a thousand apologies—he 
must fill up his half-hour with scholastic 
explanations—practice and duty must 
be elbowed out altogether, or degraded 
into perfect insignificance by the nar- 
rowness of the corner which they are 
thrust into; and that precious time is 
spent in nibbling away at the point and 
pedantry of artificial divisions, which 
would have been better employed in 
alarming the conscience, and urging the 


% 


«) 


broad and impressive warning of the 
Apostle, “ Be not deceived : neither for- 
nicators, nor adulterers, nor thieves, nor 
covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, 
nor extortioners, shall inherit the king- 
dom of God.” No, my brethren, all 
these things must be doneaway. They 
were done away in the case of the 
Christians to whom the apostle ad- 
dressed himself; and in what manner ? 
“They were washed and sanctified in 
the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the 
Spirit of our God.” 

The same principle applies to the 
second point of information which I 
brought to bear upon the first. You 
have no right to attach yourself to one 
truth to the exclusion of another. You 
have no right first to derive one princi- 
ple from the Bible, and then to derive a 
second from it by dint of your own ex- 
cogitations. Youare to take the second 
principle as well as the first from the 
Bible—you are to follow the Bible with 
respectful footstep through all its de- 
tails and all its additional communica- 
tions; and when [I offer such obvious 
passages as the following, I call upon 
you to be convinced, and to acknowl- 
edge them ;—* There is therefore now 
no condemnation to those which are in 
Christ Jesus, who walk not after the 
flesh, but after the Spirit.,.—“If any 
‘man have not the spirit of Christ, he is 
none of His.”—* But the fruit of the 
Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
gentleness, goodness, faith.” If the Bi- 
ble will not convince, little can be done 
by a mere human interpreter; and 
nothing remains but to deplore the de- 
lusion which I cannot rectify—to pity 
and to pray for it. 

The very expedient by which I at- 
tempted to school the general Christian 
into a distinct and pointed recognition 
of the atonement, I employ for the pur- 
pose of schooling the partial Christian 
into a recognition equally distinct and 
equally pointed of the doctrine of the 
Spirit. It all resolves itself into a belief 
of the law and of the testimony, and 
not such a belief as will rest in the bare 
acquiescence that the testimony is true, 
but such a belief as will urge on its 
possessor to an actual examination of the 
testimony—such a belief as will close 
with all the parts of the testimony— 


THE LIVING WATER. 


453 


such a belief as will appropriate every 
distinct communication as it passes in 
review before the eye of a mind earnest- 
ly bent on becoming wise unto salvation 
through the Scriptures of the Old and 
New Testament—such a belief as a 
little child exercises when it follows by 
its convictions all the separate parts of 
the narrative which its parent sets be- 
fore it. The belief follows, not because 
this second thing that is told me blends 
in one harmonious analogy with the 
first thing that was told me, but the be- 
lief embraces both the things, just be- 
cause both the things are told me in the 
written and venerable record. 

Take this along with you, my breth- 
ren, and you will perceive at once how 
the doctrine of free grace is delivered in 
the Bible—how the doctrine of heaven 
being a gift, and pardon being a gift, 
and all the privileges of Christianity 
being so many gifts—you will perceive 
at once how these statements may be 
defended on the one hand from the 
abuses of a corrupting Antinomianism, 
and how on-the other they may be de- 
fended from the reproaches of those who 
say of the evangelical doctrine, that it 
gives up all the securities of practical 
righteousness. There is not one of 
these doctrines which does ‘not rest for 
all its credibility and all its title to ac- 
ceptance on the announcement of God. 
And should God be pleased to add to 
them another announcement, it takes its 
station among the former with all the 
firm footing of an equal and a co-ordi- 
nate authority. The living water is a 
gift, and it is a never-failing accompani- 
ment of all the other gifts; and if it be 
wanting, then every one of them is 
wanting. Without holiness no man 
shall see God. Without the Spirit, we 
are none of Christ’s. The Spirit is 
called the earnest of our inheritance ; 
and if we obtain not the earnest on this 
side of time, we shall not obtain the in- 
heritance on the other side of time. Ah, 
my brethren, be assured that He who 
opens the portal of the mind for a wel- 
come admission of the tidings of pardon 
and acceptance, does not close it upon 
the truth which ever follows in their 
train, that we shall never reach heaven 
unless by sanctification we are made 
meet for heaven. This is borne in, as 


454° 


it were, upon a Christian mind with as 
resistless an energy and stamped upon 
it with as indelible an impression, and 
proceeded on with as firm and habitual 
a conviction of its truth as any other 
communication of God’s word that you 
choose tocondescend upon. That truth, 
the faith of which gives me peace and 
joy is just believed as far and no farther 
than that truth. the faith of which im- 
presses upon me the necessity of a new 
walk and an upright conversation and 
which sets me on the track of endeavour 
and inquiry how to obtain them. and 
which guides me to the affecting con- 
clusion that without Christ I can do 
nothing, and which revives my depart- 
ing courage by the assurance that with 
Christ I can do all things and which 
urges me on to renew my prayers at 
the throne of grace, and which leads me 
to use the strength I acquire through 
prayer by putting it to trial and which 
joins in one close and inseparable com- 
bination. the habit of exertion with the 
habit of dependence, and which at length 
establishes me in the very attitude of 
the Apostle, who strove mightily ac- 
cording to the grace of God working in 
him mightily. 

I come back upon the class of pro- 
fessing Christians who look at their 
own performances, and think they do 
enough. I ask them if in the obedi 
ence they yield they look habitually to 
that mighty Agent who has been sent 
forth from heaven as the Restorer and 
Sanctifier of a degenerate world? Do 
they act on the strength of the promised 
assistance? Do they watch for the 
Spirit with all perseverance? Paul did 
s9; and he so far from thinking that 
he had already attained, or was already 
perfect, forgot the things which were 
behind. and reached forth unto those 
things which were before pressing to 
ward the mark for the prize of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus. I come 
back upon the class of professing Chris- 
tians who look to themselves and are 
not satisfied. It is right for them not 
to be satisfied with their performances ; 
but it is not right in the face of a prom- 
‘ise sealed by the blood of Christ—in 
the face of a settled provision announced 
co you as forming part of His redemp- 
‘ign—it is not right, I say, in the face 


THE LIVING WATER. 


[SERM. 


of such encouragements to despair.. The 
provision to which I allude is the Spirit 
to help your infirmities. It is not re- 
fused to those who ask it.- It will be 
given you by Him who hath given you 
His own Son as the pledge and the 
assurance that with Him He will freely 
give you all things. “It is shed on us 
abundantly through Jesus Christ our 
Saviour.” I announce it as a gift, and 
in so doing I strip a pretended ortho- 
doxy of all its plans of resistance to that 
doctrine which is according to godli- 
ness ; I explain this godliness in all its 
parts; I preserve this sanctification in 
all its branches; I descend to all the 
minuteness and variety of the apostoli- 
cal teaching; I carry forward Christi- 
anity to the shop and the family and 
the market; I apply it to your hearts 
and your homes and your business. 
This may. to the taste of some, give too 
secular and too working an air to the 
divine life. For their satisfaction I am 
not furnished with two mouths—I can- - 
not say two things at the same instant . 
—JI cannot. within the compass of one 
breathing, tell both the duty and the 
source from which you desire the ability 
to thus change it. Yet both must be 
told, and if they stand in different vers: 
es or even in different chapters of the 
same Bible should not you judge with » 
candour and hear with indulgence, 
though they are made to stand in differ- 
ent paragraphs of the same sermon, or 
different sermons of the same minister ? 

This brings me to another part of my 
text. I have been hitherto employed 
in attempting to prove that the privilege 
annexed to Christianity is a gift, and in 
explaining what the gift is, 1 hasten to 
a close and offer little in the way of 
expansion upon a clause so obvious in 
itself as—* Hadst thou known who it is 
that saith to thee. Give me to drink, 
thou wouldst have asked of Him, and 
He would have given thee.” It is de- 
lightful to think that these gracious 
words which fell from the mouth of our 
Saviour, and contain an assurance so 
pregnant with satisfaction and hope to 
all who believe in Him. have an empha- 
sis in themselves which need no human 
illustration to help them. It is delight | 
ful to think that this knowledge which 
the woman of Samaria was in want of 


*] 


is open and accessible to all of you. I 
shall convey to you that knowledge in 
a single sentence—Christ is willing and 
He is able to‘help you. To Him all 
power has been committed both in 
heaven and in earth. Without Him, 
you can do nothing ; but with Him you 
have a Being who, subduing all the 
powers of darkness which oppose you 
in this lower world, and commanding 
all the influences of heaven to rest upon 
you, can enable you to do all things. 
Had she known, she would have asked 
—or, in other words, we do not ask be- 
cause we do not know. With whata 
charm and what an emphasis ought 
this to fall upon the heart of the melan- 
choly Christian. He is here told, upon 
the highest of all authorities—upon the 
authority of our Saviour Himself—that 
the despair in which he indulges is 
founded upon ignorance of Him. He 
knows not how ready—he knows not 
how able—he knows not how free—he 
knows not how perfectly willing—nay, 
how eager and how delighted his Sa- 
viour is to receive all who come unto 
Him—to listen to their complaints—to 
heal their diseases—to supply their 
every want, and administer to every 
necessity. This is the true and the 
faithful representation of Christ. Could 
I give you a real and a living impres- 
sion of Him—could I fix in your hearts 
the image of Him such as He is— 
could I bring Him before you, offering 
and inviting, nay, beseeching you to be 
reconciled—could all this be done— 
(and I pray that this work of faith may 
be wrought in you with power)—then 
the melancholy which oppresses your 
heart and keeps it dark would be dis- 
solved in an instant—the gospel would 
come to you not in word only, but in 
power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in 
much assurance—and the object for 
which Paul laboured with the Galatians 
would be accomplished in you. Christ 
would be formed in you, and He would 
be made unto you of God. wisdom, and 
righteousness, and sanctification, and 
redemption. 

Before concluding, let me give you 
an explanation of the term living water, 
in the largest and most comprehensive 

sense which belongs to it. There can 
be nothing more firmly depended on 


THE LIVING WATER. 





455 


than interpretation of Holy Writ upon 
the subject—and there we are express- 
ly told that it signifies the Spirit of God — 
given to all them who believe. Now, 
by the way in which I have split down ° 
the subject into particulars, you may 
conceive that this Spirit is not given at 
the very outset of a man’s Christianity _ 
—that on the strength of his own under- 
standing, and by the movements of his 
own conscience, he travels in independ- 
ent progress toward the point at which 
the Holy Ghost is ready to enter him— 
that there must be a previous conviction 
of sin, and a previous knowledge of the 
Saviour, and a previous faith in Him, 
and that then upon men in this state of 
preparation the living water is poured, 
and holiness unto everlasting life is the 
blessed effect of its salutary application. 
Now it is not to be denied that at dis- 
tinct steps of the career of a believer 
there are distinct supplies of grace and 
of spiritual enlargement conferred upon 
him—that he stands on higher vantage 
ground for obtaining what he seeks 
when he can do it with a strong faith 
in the appointed Mediator—and that 
when this faith is at the strongest, the 
Holy Ghost is ready to meet it with 
His largest and most powerful opera- 
tion. But, my brethren, you are not to’ 
suppose that this answer of His to the 
believer’s prayer is the very commence- 
ment of His influences upon the soul. 
The truth is that He presides over the 
whole progress of sentiment and con- 
viction by which the mind is possessed 
by the principle of faith, and the mouth 
is conducted to the prayer of faith. He 
convinces of sin—He communicates 
knowledge through the medium of the 
Bible. He gives movement and direc- 
tion to the very first step in the process 
of conversion. as well as to all the suc- 
cessive steps of the process. He was 
present with his constraining energy at 
the time when conscience laid its check 
upon the sinner—at the time when his 
heart smote him for his misdoings—at 
the time when a serious conviction of 
the need of repentance visited the inner 
chamber of his thoughts—at the time 
when a sense of guilt and of danger be- 
gan to urge upon him the necessity of 
flying from the frowning destiny that 
was before him-—at the time when an- 


456 


ticipation filled his bosom with her 
darkest and most appalling images—at 
the time when the voice within would 
not let him alone, and the terror of the 
Lord, like an arrow sticking fast, kept 
by him throughout all his movements, 
and pursued him with an agonizing 
sense of a present guilt and of a coming 
danger—at the time when his Saviour’s 
name fell upon his ear and arrested his 
attention, and he turned his languid eye 
upon some obscure dawning of the Sun 
of righteousness—at the time when the 
clouds passed away and the soul emerg- 
ed from.all its perplexities, and the free | 
offer of acceptance came with assurance 





THE DUTY REQUIRED AND THE STRENGTH IMPARTED. 


[SERM. 


upon his feelings, and the persuading 
power and kindness of the Saviour 
charmed the darkness and: the tempest 
away from him, and behold it was a 
calm—at the time when the firm deter- 
mination entered his bosom to live to 
Him who thus had translated him from 
death to life, and the holy purpose was 
carried forward to accomplishment. and > 
the prayer for a larger supply of the 
Spirit of all grace ascended on the 
wings of an invigorated faith, and 
brought down upon his tranquilized 
heart an abundant shower of the influ 
ences of heaven. 


SERMON XI. 


The Duty Required and 


the Strength Imparted.* 


‘“‘T can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” —PHILIPPIANS iv. 13. 


In the prosecution of the following 
discourse, I shall first point your atten- 
tion to the extent of duty, or to the mul- 
titude of particulars which enter into the 
“all things” of the apostle. In the sec- 
ond place, I shall prove to you in how 
many of these things we offend. And in 
the third place, I shall attempt to rouse | 
you from the dangerous conclusion, that 
because this disobedience is so much the 
condition of frail and corrupt humanity, 
it must just be acquiesced in—a conclu- | 
sion which [ must do my uttermost to 
resist, because I see in the example be-| 
fore me that there is a revealed instru- | 
ment for aiding the frailties and subdu- | 
img the corruptions of our nature—even | 
' the strength imparted by Christ—an in- | 
strument so powerful, that in virtue of | 
its operation Paul was enabled to do all | 
things—“I can do all things through 
Christ which strengtheneth me.” 


duty of man to do, that could not be 
traced to a clear and immediate depend- 
ence upon the first and the greatest 
commandment—the love of God; and 
the second, which is the love of our 
neighbour, takes in a very wide range 
of human obedience. ; 
Each distinct application of the law 
may be called a distinct duty, and there 
are writers who have bewildered us 
among the divisions and the subdivi- 
sions of human virtue. They have laid 
hold of the general principle, and made 
it to travel the extensive round of soci- 
ety along with them. They have ap- 
pled it to a multitude of cases, and 
brought forth a lengthened catalogue 
of observances for the regulation of hu- 
man life. Now, it is very true that te 
a certain extent our Lord and His apos- 
tles did the same thing. They did not 
satisfy themselves with announcing the 


general principles of duty—they have 


{. Duty, though simple in its princi-| 
ples, is manifold in its applications: | 
There is not one thing which it is the | 





* This sermon was preached at Dairsie Sacrament 
on June 13, 1813. At Kilmany Sacrament, June 20, 
1813. At Balmerino, August 2, 1813. At Monimail, 
September 19, 1813. At Cupar, June 4,1815. At Kirk- 
intulloch, August 7, 1815. In the Tron Church, Glas- 
gow, June 9, 1816, 





in many instances given us the case 
and the application; but they have by 
no means exhausted this part of the sub- 
ject. They have left a thousand possi- 
bilities in the circumstances of man un- 
noticed, and the only way in which 
they have provided for them is by be- 
queathing the general rule, and leaving 


x1. | THE DUTY REQUIRED AND 
it to man himself to make the applica- 
tions. Love. says Paul. is the fulfilling 
of the law. He had before enumerated 
a few of the applications. Under the 
influence of this principle, a man will 
not commit adultery—he will not kill, 
he will not steal, he will not bear false 
witness he will not covet; but, fully 
aware that he had not exhausted all the 
applications he ended his enumeration, 
satisfied with leaving his disciples in 
full possession of the general principle, 
by declaring that if there be any other 
commandment, it is briefly comprehend- 
ed in this saying, namely, “ Thou shalt 
love thy neighbour as thyself.” 

It must be obvious to you, that were 
I to attempt an enumeration of the “ all 
things” which belong to obedience, it 
would be long. and very long, before 
I could accomplish it. Love to God in- 
volves init obedience to all His require- 
ments. Love to man is only one of 
those requirements, and yet it involves 
in its mighty train the doing of all that 
is just or useful to our brethren of the 
species. ‘The duties which spring from 
these copious principles of human con- 
duct are like the host which no man 
can number. They meet us at every 
tootstep of our history—they press upon 
us in every direction—they accompany 
us in every relation of life—they demand 
‘every fragment of our time—they move 
along the whole line of our existence. 
Nor is there a single minute in which 
they leave the heart of man to the arbi- 
trary independence of its movements— 
“ Whatsoever you do, do to the glory 
of God,” is a commandment which there 
is no escaping from. It does not leave 
us to ourselves for a single instant. It 
tells us that there is no conceivable situ- 
ation in human life in which God has 
not a law and a duty for us—nor a sin- 
gle case in all the wide diversity of hu- 
man affairs to which this question is not 
applicable, “ What is the will of God in 
the matter before me ?” 

You may be well convinced, then, of 
the multitude of the “ all things” which 
it is your duty to do, though I do not 
bring forward a catalogue of all the va- 
rieties. Let the love of God be the con- 
stant principle, and obedience to God 
the constant expression of it, and there 
cannot a day roll over your heads with- 


: 
m 58 





THE STRENGTH IMPARTED. 457 
out carrying a number of virtuous per- 
formances along with it, There must 
be a constant surrender of self to the in- 
terests of those around ,;ou—there must 
be a breathing after usefulness—there 
must be integrity for the performance of 
what is just—there must be civility for 
the performance of what is agreeable— 
there must be an hourly self-denial in 
the work of doing to others what you 
would be done by; and such is the wide- 
ness of this obligation, that a single hu- 
man being can scarcely come within 
your reach but you must feel a call to 
the exercise. For the master to do that 
which is just and equal to his servant ; 
for the servant to be faithful to his work 
while the eye of his employer is removed 
from him; for the parent to maintain a 
constant purity of example in the sight 
of his children; for the member of a 
company to carry it with kindness and 
humility, and to give up his own will 
and his own way to the gratification of 
those around him; and what, perhaps. 
is a higher achievement than any, for 
the member of a family to keep down 
the irksomeness of his feeling, and suf- 
fer not a murmur or a frown to break 
in upon the peacefulness of his domestic 
society: these are only a few out of the 
many; and yet they demand a vigilance 
which must never be remitted ; a tone 
and a habit of exertion which must never 
be relaxed; a strictness of principle 
which, if suffered to abate for a single 
instant, may throw you open to the in- 
roads of temptation, and lead you to de- 
plore in sorrow and in shame the im- 
potency of all your purposes. 

From the visible conduct let me car- 
ry you inward to the chambers of the 
mind, and lay before you the mighty 
work of obedience that should be going 
on there. Are the supreme regards of 
your heart fastened upon God? Is His 
authority felt as the master principle to 
which all the movements of the ner 
man observe a subordination? Do you 
feel’ His friendship to be enough for 
you? and does His assurance that all 
shall work together for good, keep your 
spirit at rest from the anxieties of the 
world? He has sent you a written 
message, have you brought every 
thought of your heart to the captivity 
of its obedience? Do you submit to it 


458 THE DUTY REQUIRED AND 
im faith, and is the love of Christ, the 
author and the finisher of our faith, felt 
in its constraining influence upon you ? 
Is conformity to His image the main 
object of your ambition? and in devo- 
tion to the Father—in love to every 
brother of the species—in the patient 
endurance of wrongs—in meekness and 
gentleness and kindness, are you aiming 
at a fair and faithful resemblance to the 
pattern laid before you in the gospel, 
struggling not only to walk as He 
walked, but to have the same mind in 
you that was also in Christ Jesus ? 


IL. These are so many of the “all 
things ;’ and [ have put them into the 
form of questions that your conscience, 
stimulated to an answer, may go along 
with me in the second head of discourse ; 
and sure I am, that every honest and 
enlightened conscience will spare me 
the burden of a proof when [I assert. 
that in many, and in very many, of 
these things we offend. In some of 
these things, indeed, there may be an 
outward conformity, though the great 
principle of duty—the will of God— 
has no influence whatever. A sense of 
honour may give integrity to your con- 
duct; the fear of disgrace may preserve 
you from all that is counted shameful 
in society ; an instinctive feeling of gen- 
erosity may lead you to occasional acts 
of beneficence; the mechanical influ- 
ence of habit may perpetuate and en- 
sure your attendance upon the ordinan- 
ces of religion; your admiration of 
what is tasteful and decorous in the hu- 
man character, may lead you to display 
in your own much of all that is amiable 
and engaging; but all this might have 
been done though there had been nei- 
ther a God above you nor an eternity be- 
fore you; and certain it is, that all this 
has been done where there was no feel- 
ing of the one and no anticipation of the 
other. How can these be appealed to 
as proofs of obedience, when one and 
all of them may be performed while the 
grand principle of obedience is asleep ; 
while the authority of the Judge is un- 
felt, and the fear of the judgment seat 
has no operation? Viewed in reference 
to the Lawgiver, they are in fact so 





THE STRENGTH IMPARTED. [SERM, 
in the doing of them He was uever 
thought of, and the obligation of His 
law was never adverted to. Yet, upon 
tnis deceitful foundation, many an in- 
fatuated soul rests its security; and 
many who pass in society as its delight 
and its ornament, who are hailed as the 
favourites of every company, and distin- 
guished by the greetings of the market- 
place—who, by the unblemished propri- 
ety of their manners, have their rank 
assigned to them among the good men - 
of the world. will, in that day when 
judgment is laid to the line, and right- 
eousness to the plummet, be found to 
have lived without God, and having 
neglected His obedience in time, to 
have lost His favour and His friendship 
through eternity. 

“ Whosoever,” says the Apostle James, 
“shall keep the whole law, and yet of- 
fend in one point, he is guilty of all.” 
There is nothing to surprise or to startle 
us in this assertion, if we only advert 
to the singleness of that principle on 
which all obedience is suspended—Re- 
spect to the authority of God. It is no 
evidence of respect whatever, if you just 
do what you would have done though 
He had interposed with no authority 
upon the subject. He hath said, “ Thou 
shalt not kill;” but if your own instinct- 
ive horror at the atrocity of a murder 
would have preserved you from the 
breaking of this commandment, I can- 
not say that in this one example of out- 
ward conformity, I have yet detected 
the essential principles of obedience. 

He hath said, “ Thou shalt not be 
angry at thy brother without a cause ;” 
but if the constitutional mildness of your 
own temper keep you from this trans- 
gression. | have not yet seen any deci- 
sive proof of respect to the authority of 
the Lawgiver. He hath said, “ Thou 
shalt not steal ;” but if a sentiment of 
honour aided by the sufficiency of your 
own circumstances, keep you from an 
offence so mean and so disgraceful, for 
anything I know, the heart, in reference 
to God, may still be in a state of the 
most entire wickedness, and as utterly 
devoid of submission to Him as if He 
did not exist, or as if His will had 
never been proclaimed tous. I travel 


many acts of indifference ; nor.can they | the whole round of human duty, and I 
be sustained as offerings to Him, when | may see a thousand examples of out- 


ay] THE DUTY REQUIRED AND 
ward conformity which are decisive of 
nothing, because to do what you would 
have done at any rate, can never be put 
to the account of religious principle. 
Give me a case where the thing com- 
manded is at war with the mighty ele- 
ments of taste and passion and interest. 
and then I will fasten my attention up- 
on it. The experiment will be a fair 
one; and if I find that in-every in- 
stance the authority of God carries it 
over the rebellious inclinations of the 
heart, then I will be found to acknowl. 
edge that the first and the greatest com- 
mandment is kept in all its extent and 
in all its entireness. But who does not 
see even in one single instance to the 
contrary, that the great principle of 
obedience is trampled upon, God is de- 
posed from His supremacy, something 
else has been more loved than He, and 
the homage which He exacts. not of a 
part of the heart but of all the heart. 
has been withheld from Him? Many 
things may be appealed to; but if all 
things are not done, then the Lawgiver 
is dethroned; and as surely as one act 
of forgery or murder brings down the 
vengeance of the civil law upon the 
man who was blameless and unoffend- 
ing to the very moment of his trans- 
gression, so surely will many whom the 
world smiles upon, and who pass among 
the men of the world as the most pure 
and amiable of the species, when 
brought under the tribunal of that 
mighty Being “ with whom we have to 
do.” have those points laid open which 
will flash upon their consciences the 
conviction of guilt, and entail upon 
their deluded souls an entire and ever- 
lasting condemnation. 

Give me a man under the influence 
of an honest desire after conformity to 
the love of God, and there will be no 
wilful reservations in the obedience of 
such aman. There may be imperfec- 
tion in the whole of his obedience, but 
this imperfection does not proceed from 
any deliberate exception of this one or 
that other of the divine commandments. 
There is within him the working of 
an entire principle—in virtue of which 
he is in good earnest after thé doing of 
alk the commandments. He may come 
short in all and in every one of them, 
but in none of these shortcomings has 


459 


THE STRENGTH IMPARTED. 
’ 

he committed that in which, according 
to the Apostle John, is the sin unto 
death. He honestly grieves at his 
shortcomings—he honestly confesses 
them, and obtains an interest in that 
Justice and faithfulness of God which 
stands pledged to forgive him his sins, 
and to cleanse him from all his unright- 
eousness. But there is not one particu- 
lar of this unrighteousness which he 
does not most sincerely desire to obtain 
deliverance from, which he does not 
strive with all his power to make head 
against. which he does not feel a long- 
ing of the heart, that through Christ 
strengthening him he may _ prevail 
against, which he does not make the 
object of his watchfulness and his ex- 
ertions and his prayers ; and be assured 
that there is not an honest and aspiring 
Christian among you who will not, in 
virtue of his general desire to be re- 
leased from all sin. and to shake him- 
self loose from the service of every 
other master but Christ, and to do all 
things in His name and to the glory of 
fis father who is in heaven—there is 
not one of you who will not by the use 
of the gospel expedients of faith and 
dependence on the Spirit make con- 
stant progress not merely in one or in 
any given number of reformations, but 
constant progress in all reformation, and 
be perpetually tending to the high em- 
inency of standing perfect and complete 
in the whole will of God. 

Now let me just suppose that instead 
of this general and honest desire after 
all obedience there is one single excep- 
tion in which the man gives wilful and 
deliberate way to his own passion or his 
own interest or his own vanity, and that 
with the striving after these other points 
of conformity there is one point in which 
he acts the part of a determined and 
presumptuous offender. Even he who 
honestly aspired after obedience in all 
points fell into sin; but as I said just 
now, such sin as was perpetually decay- 
ing in its power and ascendency over 
him—such sin as found its forgiveness 
in the blood of Christ through prayer— 
such sin as might occasionally break 
forth into that warfare between the flesh 
and the spirit which takes place in the 
bosom of every believer—but such sin 
as is ever waning away into a feeble 


460: THE DUTY REQUIRED AND 
and more expiring remainder, and which 
at length, utterly extinguished, will pre- 
sent the man who has fought this good 
fizht and has kept the faith, and has 
finished his course—will present him 
holy and unblamable and unreprovable 
before God. But this, my brethren, 
will never, never be the result in the 
case of him who, with the consent of 
his will, makes one habitual exception 
to the great maxim of entire and uni- 
versal obedience. The flaw which cor- 
rupt nature introduces into the obedi- 
ence of the man who is making head 
against all corruption is one thing—the 
flaw in the obedience of him who wil- 
fully gives way to any one form of cor- 
ruption is another. The former flaw is 
ever getting fainter, and will at length 
disappear—the latter flaw carries in it 
all the virulence, and brings down upon 
it all the condemnation of the sin unto 
death. What is the reason why a sin- 
ner of the latter description yields an 
obedience in other things, and refuses 
his obedience in this one thing? The 
doing of the other things falls in with 
his taste and constitution and circum- 
stances. It lays him under no heavy 
or painful sacrifice. He may be consti- 
tutionally of a gentle and peaceful dis- 
position, and he transgresses not. the 
precept of not being soon angry. He 
may have a positive aversion to the use 
of intoxicating liquors, and you may 
never be able to detect him in the trans- 

gression of the precept—* Be not drunk 
with the drunken.” He may have a 
high sentiment of natural integrity hid- 

den within him, and in turning defiance 
to every one temptation of dishonesty 
he may yield a conformity to the maxim 
of doing as he would be done by. But 
give me one case, and I will ask no 
more, where the authority of God comes 
into collision with a something that his 
heart is set upon—a something to which 
he is driven with the whole violence 
of his desires—a something which he 
knows to be against the will of God; 
when in the face of that knowledge 
he acts the wilful and deliberate trans- 
gressor, then, I say, that all his other 
obedience is no such proof of his regard 
to the authority of God as his disobedi- 
ence in this one thing is a proof of his 
utter disregard to that authority—I say 


THE STRENGTH IMPARTED. | SERM. 
that this disobedience demonstrates that 
there is festering within, him a great 
and a radical ‘principle of rebellion 
against the authority of his rightful 
Lawgiver—that the visible conformities, 
though most correctly and punctually 
done, are not done unto God; they are 
done from some other cause than the 
right principle of submission to Him, 
because when this principle was brought 
to its fair trial—when called out to com- 
bat it with the urgency of a besetting 
temptation, it was found wanting; and 
being an habitual offender in this one 
point, he is guilty of all, because he 
evinces within him such a preference 
of his own desire to God’s will, as gives 
all its provocation to sin, all its deform- 
ity to disobedience. 

To think otherwise, my brethren, 
would be doing less justice to God 
than you do to an earthly legislator. 
Those unhappy men who lie under 
sentence of death have’ become amena- 
ble to that sentence upon one specific 
act of disobedience to the laws of their 
country.* They have not been guilty 
of murder, and it-is to be hoped that 
they had still enough of instinctive 
horror at such an atrocity as to have 
recoiled from this deed of violence. 
They have not been guilty of forgery, 
and I know not whether it was the 
want of opportunity, or the fear of de- 
tection, or some remainder of dislike to 
such an outrageous violation of truth, 
that kept them from this transgression. 
The one crime of which they have been 
guilty is theft, and for this one crime 
they are liable to as fearful an execution 
as if there lay upon them the guilt of 
innumerable violations. This one crime 
is completely decisive of the general de- 
fect in the moral constitution that be- — 
longs to them—ait is completely decisive 
of their wanting the principle of al- 
legiance to the “civil authority. Had 
this principle been within them, they 
would not have stolen, and the single 
act of stealing demonstrates their utter 
want of this principle. And in the 
same manner with the principle of al- 
legiance to the authority of God within 


* This paragraph, and the two immediately succeed- 
ing ones, were added to the original sermon written in 
Kilmany, when it was preached in Glasgow. At the 
time of its delivery in the Tron Church, two men were 
lying under sentence of death for theft. 


x=. J 


you. this principle would struggle against 
all that was contrary to the will of God. 
It might be long, and very long, before 
it carried you the length of a sinless 
conformity to the whole of His com- 
mandments, but sure [ am that not one 
of the commandments would be wilfully 
and habitually trampled upon ; and give 
me a man who has set up the fear of 
God in his heart, and I shall see that 
man walking the whole round of visible 
obedience, contesting it against sin in 
all its forms and in all its modes, and 
struggling, honestly struggling, to yield 
himself to every one of the requirements, 
and to conform himself to the whole will 
of God. 
_ I trust that what I have said may 
serve to undeceive the consciences of 
those who are building the hope of a 
future security on a partial obedience— 
‘who are cherishing some allowed reser- 
vation—who are prosecuting some un- 
hallowed walk of indulgence which they 
have not yet had the fortitude to abandon 
—who think that they will eke out for 
themselves a place in heaven, because 
along with some suffered habit of licen- 
tiousness they have integrity, or they 
have good-nature, or they have a feeling 
heart, or they do an occasional act of 
generosity, or they are attentive to par- 
ents, or they take a share in the ordi- 
nances of religion. This is one very 
important application of the above prin- 
ciple; but there is one other which [ 
cannot forbear, as it touches on a subject 
to which I from time to time have oc- 
easionally referred, and which if ever I 
take it up in a separate and systematic 
form will, Iam sure, require the delib- 
erate exertion of a good many weeks 
ere I unfold it in all its bearings, or do 
justice to the vast importance which 
belongs to it. If these principles be 
true, how fearful is. the extent of de- 
struction that is brought upon the hu- 
man race by the rude, careless, unfeeling 
and unreflecting way in which the young 
of a great city are introduced into the 
vices of dissipation! They may only 
be initiated into one act of disobedience, 
and along with this they may retain 
outhful sincerity, youthful tenderness 
of heart, all the impulses of a youthful 
generosity, and all the repugnance of a 
high and honourable indignation at what 


THE DUTY REQUIRED AND THE STRENGTH IMPARTED. 





46) 


is sordid and avaricious, or mean and 
paltry in the concealments of dishon- 
esty. And yet, my brethren, be this as 
it may, they by their one act of disobe- 
dience have thrown the gauntlet of defi- 
ance to the authority of God—they have 
entered on that course which goeth down 
to the chambers of death. They have 
dispossessed from their hearts the prin- 
ciple of allegiance to the Lawgiver who 
speaketh to them from heaven ; they do 
that for the sake of which the wrath of 
God cometh on the children of disobe- 
dience ; they have indeed made a woefu!] 
transition, and yet, wretched to think, it 
is a transition made by thousands every 
year—it is a transition which parents 
sleep over—a transition which is con- 
nived at and smiled upon by general 
society—a transition to which the help- 
less young are cheered and encouraged 
by their hardier and more profligate 
acquaintances—a transition travelled by 
so fearful a majority of human souls, 
that a Christian parent shudders as 
much at the thought of committing his 
children to the walks of business as he 
would do at committing them to all the 
dangers of a fearful and unknown wil- 
derness. Oh, my brethren, this is an 
extremely painful contemplation, and I 
should like to be relieved from it—and 
the way of rearing around me a spec- 
tacle on which the moral eye might rest 
with more complacency than it ever can 
do on this dark scene of ruined principle 
that is on every side of me, would be 
for parents to stir themselves to a little 
more vigilance than they have ever yet 
exercised, and for the masters of populous 
establishments to take upon themselves 
some responsibility in the way of advice 
and of guardianship, and for private in- 
dividuals among you to betake your- 
selves to the angelic office of doing all 
that in you lies to aid the struggles of 
human virtue when like to be overborne 
by the tide of ridicule and of example, 
and for all of you who have a desire for 
reformation to cherish a more intrepid 
and declared spirit upon the ‘subject 
than you have ever yet done, so as to 
make determined head against the tyr- 
anny of custom, and to keep yourselves 
and others out of the way of every 
temptation, and to shun every assembly 
of the light and the scornful, and man- 


462 


fully to resist all that is corrupting in 
the conformities of fashion and of the 
world and to take your own inderend- 
ent way, and spread the sanction ‘of 
your example over others who do the 
same when you break off from every 
combination, and refuse every meeting, 
and retire from every society, where, in 
the spirit of a wild and convivial licen- 
tiousness, all the decencies of life are 
exploded, and all the delicacies of a yet 
unvitiated youth are subjected to a most 
barbarous and unfeeling violation. 

This is but a rapid sketch of that 
work of extensive mischief that week 
after week is gaining proselytes to the 
kingdom of Satan. and making them 
tenfold more the children of hell than 
before. At present I shall prosecute it 
no further, and shall conclude with one 
sentence to aclass of hearers over whom 
I could pour all the tenderness of a 
mind that would do anything to per- 
petuate the bloom of their innocence 
here and preserve them entire for the 
pure joys of a happy eternity hereafter. 
Are you hesitating under the influence 
of vicious and corrupting exposure ?— 
Then know that the question is not. 
Shall I do this wicked thing, and re- 
taining all the other virtues of my char- 
acter, just put myself in a less likely 
situation for heaven than before? Un- 
derstand the principle I have been 
labouring to impress about the whole 
magnitude of the ruin that a deliberate 
habit of transgression against one point 
and particular of the divine law brings 
along with it; and then you will per- 
ceive that the question will be, Shall I 
do this wicked thing and put the whole 
happiness of my eternity away from me? 
Feel the whole interest of your imper- 
ishable being to be involved in the step 
on which you are hesitating. Bring 
the whole extent.of your religious prin- 
ciples to bear upon the question, and 
know, most assuredly know, that how- 
ever much the vices of dissipation may ! 
be tolerated and connived at by society 
at large, it is true of every one of these 
vices, as it is true of every other, that a 
wilful indulgence is a gulf between you 
and God, and a barrier in the way of 
your salvation. May every call you 
have heard to immediate repentance 
lend its impression to your hearts. 


THE DUTY REQUIRED AND THE STRENGTH IMPARTED. 


[SERM, 


Think of the progressive tyranny of 
habit ; think of the progressive harden- 
ing of the mind against all moral and 
religious considerations ; think that the 
voice of conscience decays and at last 
dies out into a final departure away 
from you; think of the spirit of God 
grieved by your every act of resistance ; 
and do, my young friends, choose the 
better part, and let every manly prin- 
ciple of high and honourable resolution 
be summoned up to the exercise ; and 
when sinners entice, consent not, and 
defy all their ridicule, and spurn all their 
allurements and be alarmed not merely 
at vice, but at every one step which facili- 
tates and prepares for it; and be assured 
that the more singular you make your- 
self. the more formidable the combina- 
tion of censure and contempt you raise 
up against you—and the more unsup- 
ported by the example and countenance 
of others, if it be in the good cause of 
obedience, you throw a higher moral sub- 
limity over the whole of your intrepid and 
respectable career; and the noble con- 
sistency of your doings will in time win 
from every acquaintance you have the 
fulness of admiration, and you may at 
length become the honoured instrument 
in the hand of God of breaking up the 
combinations of iniquity, and throwing 
the shield of a commanding example 
over the young who may come after you 
in your warehouses and in your offices 
of employment. 

To ~ do all things” is the only effect- 
ual test of obedience. I go round 
with this test among the various classes 
and characters of men, and I see a 
woeful deficiency on every side of me. 
I first go to them to whom the preach- 
ing of the cross is foolishness, and who, 
resting on the humble standard of their 
own virtues, put away from them the 
offered atonement of the gospel. Hard 
but important task to bring these peo- 
ple under the humbling conviction of 
sin, and through the flimsy disguise of 
mere civil accomplishment, to give them 
a view of the heart in all its wicked- 
ness and deformity! I would say that 
it consisted in a total alienation of the 
heart from God. They, indeed, who 
are far off from God, are made nigh 
only by the blood of Christ; and it is 
not to be wondered at, therefore, ‘that 


xt] 


THE DUTY REQUIRED AND 


those who despise its cleansing and its 
peace-speaking power should put God 
so far, and so very far away from thent. 
He is not in all their thoughts; and 
when they bring their deceitful assem- 
blage of virtues before me, I ask of 
their love: to Him, without whom vir- 
tue is nothing better than the fiction of 
aname. I ask them if His authority 
be deeply felt and faithfully proceeded 
upon—if His ordinances be their de- 


light and if His Bible be their directory 


— if His approbation be enough for them, 
when the approbation of men is with- 
drawn; and without pressing them too 
hard upon the truth of their pretensions 
that they do justly and love mercy, I 
leave it to their consciences to tell, wheth- 

er they walk humbly with their God? 
I go to another set, to whom the 
preaching of the cross is not foolish- 
ness; who name the name of the Sa- 
viour and love His sacraments; whose 
thoughts are more upon God. and whose 
eye and whose prayers are often lifted 
to the place where His honour dwelleth. 
To them I apply the test of “doing all 
things ;” and [ count it the most griev- 
ous offense which the honour of Chris- 
tianity has to sustain, that some of its 
ostentatious disciples confine their piety 
_to the Sabbath and to the ordinances, 
and banish God from the week-day em- 
ployment of ordinary business. Whence 
that disgusting censoriousness which 
spreads the tincture of gall over so 
many a religious conversation? Whence 
that low tone of honesty and truth, 
which among the humbler ranks of so- 
ciety is so often found to accompany 
the uniform appearance, and I believe 
too the occasional reality, of zeal in 
matters of religion? Whence, in fact, 
that separation of religious from social 
duty we so often meet with, not merely 
in their conception, but in their exam- 
ple and practice? Whence the feeling, 
that when a minister lectures you upon 
fidelity to masters. upon civility and 
good neighbourhood to those around 
you, upon the payment of your debts, 
upon the making up of your differences, 
upon the thousand duties which meet 
you every hour, and urge you at every 
step in the progress of your history, to 
something agreeable to the will of God 
and the example of the Saviour—-whence, 


THE STRENGTH IMPARTED. 463 
I say, the feeling whicn exists among 
you that all this is very odd and very 
unsuitable to the pulpit, and particu- 
larly so at a time when every heart 
should be turned to the love of Christ, 
and every eye should be melting over 
the appointed memorial of His atone- 
ment? Alas! against them, too, we 
can prefer the charge of not “doing all 
things” and we can substantiate it. 
With the mark of godliness upon their 
forehead. their conduct for the great ma- 
jority of their time says, “ We will not 
have God to rule over us.” He is only 
their occasional God. The easy offer- 
ing of their prayers in the family. or of 
their attendance in the church and at 
the table, is ever in readiness. But the 
living sacrifice of the whole body, soul, 
and spirit, is withheld from Him. He 
is deposed from his right and _ sover- 
elgnty over every minute of their exist- 
ence ; and instead of His law reaching 
to all their concerns, and bringing the 
whole man under his obedience, we see 
that'in the vast majority of their doings 
they cast Him off, and are as much the 
slaves of their own temper, and inclina- 
tion, and interest, as if God had not a 
will for them at all times to obey, and 
as if Christ had never set an example 
before them to study and to imitate. 

Hold, ye hypocrites ! who talk of this 
as the season that is given to the love 
of Christ, and to the memorial of His 
atonement! Didnot Christ order away a 
disciple from His altar ?—and upon what 
errand? . Upon what you, itseems, would 
call the very worldly and very unsuit- 
able employment of making up a quar- 
rel with a neighbour. Did not Christ 
say, “ If ye love me. keep my command- 
ments?” and yet the minister who ex- 
pounds these commandments, and press- 
es their observance upon you, is looked 
upon as preaching another gospel than 
what He left behind Him. Oh! when 
will men cease to put asunder what God 
hath joined; and. taking their lesson 
from the Bible as little children, submit 
to it without a murmur in all its parts 
and in all its varieties ? 

But let the minister of God be gentle 
with all men, and humble under the 
feeling of his own infirmities. Let him, 
however zealous for the truth as it is in ~ 
Jesus, learn that there is nothing in the 


464 THE DUTY REQUIRED AND 
purity of his own practice to justify a 
tone of indignant superiority to others. 
It is easy to see and to approve that 
which is excellent; but how shall he 
compass the doing of it? It is easy to 
expatiate on the frailties and the delu- 
sions of men; but how shall he manage 
for himself, when told by his own mel- 
ancholy experience that he shares in 
them? It is easy to acknowledge the 
right and the sovereignty of God in all 
things, and to press his earnest assuran- 
ces upon you, that you are wrong, if 
you suffer not the word of exhortation 
urging you to the daily walk and duties 
of the Christian; but to what refuge 
can he fly, when he finds that he him- 
self is a defaulter, and that after having 
warmed his heart at the inconsistency 
of others, and penned his sentences 
against it, he mingles in the business 
of his work and his family, and forget- 
ting that the eye of his God follows him 


there, falls a helpless victim to the im-, 


becilities of our ruined nature ? 

I make it a common question with 
you, my brethren, “ What shall we do 
to be saved from this sore calamity ?” 
Did not Christ come to do something 
more than blot out the sentence of sin 
from the book of judginent? Did not 
He come to extirpate the influence of 
sin from the believer’s heart ? And un- 
less we make war against it In every 
quarter, and aspire to a conformity with 
the will of God in all things, how, in 
the name of truth and of Scripture, can 
the salvation of Christ be taking effect 
upon us ? 


IIT. This leads me to the third head 
of discourse—Sin is not to be acquiesced 
in. You are not to say, “ Corruption is 
so much the lot of humanity, that we 
must just be doing with it.” This, [ 
fear, is often said in the heart, and often 
proceeded upon in the conduct. Every 
new sin as it is contracted is recularly 
jaid over upon Christ. It perhaps fur- 


nishes a new topic of humility; but, 


then another opportunity comes round, 
and the sin is again indulged in without 
a struggle. The answer which Paul 
gave to the question, “ Shall we sin then 
that grace may abound?” was a prompt 
and decisive one—“ God forbid!” But 
the answer which these people give in 





THE STRENGTH IMPARTED. [SERM. 
practice is, that it is all very fair. ‘The 
use which they make of Christ’s redemp- 
tion is to make Him the minister of sin; 
and wilful transgression on the one 
hand, with some unmeaning parade of 
repentance on the other, makes up the 
wretched history of many a deluded 
man, whose obedience is nothing more 
than a round of positive observances, 
and whose orthodoxy is nothing more 
than a speculation and a name. 

Oh! when shall we make you under- 
stand, my brethren, that the salvation 
of the gospel is salvation from the power 
of sin as well as from its punishment; 
and that the grace of God which bring- 
eth that salvation, not only carries in it 
forgiveness to all the ungodliness and 
worldly lusts we have been guilty of in 
time past, but teaches us to deny them 
in time future, and to live soberly, right- 
eously, and godly in the present evil 
world? Do not confine the mercy of 
God to the mere exercise of forgiveness ; 
acknowledge and go along with it in all 
its varied exercises. And we read that 
the very way in which that mercy hath 
saved us, is by the washing of regene- 
ration and the renewing of the Holy 
Ghost. You may rest assured that un- 
less the fruit of the Holy Ghost be seen 
in the newness of your lives, and unless 
the deeds of the old man, being done 
away, shall give place to the regenerate 
and the new creature in Christ Jesus, 
you have no part nor lot in the matter— 
you, as yet, form no part of God’s work- 
manship or God’s husbandry—you have 
none of that union with Christ which 
the fruitful branch has with the vine— 
you may name the name of Christ, but, 
spiritually and substantially speaking, 
you are not united with Him. All who 
are so united, not only name His name, 
but they depart from iniquity, and 
prove by their new obedience to Christ 
in all things, that the way of salvation 
is that highway which shall be called 
the way of holiness. 

The whole explanation of the matter 
is to be found in Christ. He who is re- 
vealed as our Righteousness and Re- 
demption is our Sanctification also. He 
who is titled our Saviour is also titled 
our Sanctifier. He to whom all power 
is committed both in heaven and in 
earth, can make a portion of that power 


“ 
x1. 


torest upon us. He who knoweth what 
is in man can, out of the gifts which He 
hath purchased by His obedience, make. 
a right and a suitable application of 
them to man—can give wisdom where 
before there was ignorance and folly— 
can give strength where before there 
was weakness—can give love where be- 
fore there wasrhatred and alienation— 


THE DUTY REQUIRED AND THE STRENGTH IMPARTED. 


465 


the revealed expedient for making head 
against the temptation. That expedient 
was prayer; and the promise made to 
a believing prayer was realized upon 
him: he besought the Lord, and the 
grace of the Lord was made sufficient 
for him, and his strength was made per- 
fect in weakness. Why, my brethren, 
will you affect to misunderstand me 


can give charity where before there was | when I say, “ Go,and do thou likewise ?” 


selfishness—can give forbearance where 
before there was malice and revenge— 


| 
| 


When you rise from that table, and go 
to your homes and to your business, 


in a word, can give you to receive out, why may you not carry the imitation 


of His fulness, and for the grace of His 
own pure and perfect example, can give 


you the same, so as to make you walk | 


even as He walked, and to change you 
into His image from one degree of ex- 
cellence to another, even by the Spirit 
of the Lord. 

Thus shall I judge of your worthy 
participation in this sacrament. It isa 
new approach to Christ; and if it be 
something more than the mere bodily 
exercise which profiteth littlk—if it be 
an approach to Him in faith as well as 
im appearance, then the effects of such 
an approach to the Saviour will bea 
closer union with Him; and as surely 
as the root sends up support and nour- 
ishment to the branches, so surely will 
the fruit of union to the Saviour be a 
firmer adherence to His law, and a purer 
obedience to Him in all things. The 
Spirit, which is at His giving, is shed 
forth on all who believe. Faithful is 
He who has promised it, and He also 
will do it. The same believing depend- 
ence on Christ by which you obtain His 
body to bear the burden of your of- 
fences, and His blood to wash away the 
guilt of them, will also obtain for you 
His Spirit to dwell in your hearts, to 
cleanse you from all unrighteousness, to 
strengthen them with all might, and to 
fill them with that love of Christ which 
will constrain to all obedience. 

Go not to think, my brethren, that 
this is some high, mystical doctrine, ad- 
mitting of no application to the life and 
the circumstances of men. Can any 
thing be more easy to understand than 
the conduct of Paul when beset with a 
sore temptation? Did he give way to 
it, Uhder the overpowering sense of hu- 
man weakness? No! he made use of 

59 





of the apostle along with you? At all 
times and in all places may it not be 
the prayer of your heart—* Support me, 
O God, in the matter that is now before 
me?” When you are in the midst of 
your family. and might be doing good 
to them by your conversation or exam- 
ple, may it not be the prayer of your 
heart—* O God, direct me in this ?” 
When you are going to make a bargain. 
and a convenient falsehood may bring 
you in a little more of the meat that 
perisheth—* O God, preserve me frorn 
this temptation?” When you are going 
to have a reckoning with the neighbour 
who has imposed, or the servant who . 
has disobeyed you——‘ O God. give me 
to rebuke with the meekness of wisdom ; 
and if he repents, enable me to forgive 
him, even as Thou for Christ’s sake hast 
forgiven me?” When invited to a feast 
—‘Q God, may I watch every opportu- 
nity of ministering that which may be 
to the use of edifying, and may I refrain 
my tongue from speaking evil?” When 
working for your master in the field—- 
“© God, enable me to serve him.as dil- 
igently as if his eye were upon me, and 
may I serve him from the heart, as unto 
the Lord?” When working for your 
mistress in the family——* O God, keep 
me from purloining that which is not 
my own, and by showing all good fidel- 
ity, may I adorn the doctrine of our 
Saviour in all things?” This would be 
to fulfil the injunction of the apostle, to 
“pray without ceasing ;” this would be 
to watch for the Spirit with all perse- 
verance; this would be to do all things 
to the glory of God in the name of Jesus ; 
this would be to make something more 
of the sacraments than a mockery and 
a farce:—and I call upon, you, my 


46€ 


THE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 


[SERM 


brethren, to prove that, in receiving these | will receive Him in love, and if you 
_ elements, you have received Christ ; for | have received Him in love, you will yield 
if you have received Him in truth you} to Him in obedience. _ 


SERMON XIL 4 


The Doctrine of Human Depravity.* 


‘« As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.”—Romans iii. 10, 


Tur term beauty was originally re- 
stricted to objects of sight. We talked 
of a beautiful flower, a beautiful tree, a 
beautiful landscape. The word was 
appropriated to something external.— 
The charm which constituted beauty 
resided in some visible object on which 
the eye loved to repose, and from which 
it took in an impression agreeable to 
the taste and to the fancy. In process of 
time, however, the term in question ob- 
tained a more extensive signification. 
it was transferred not merely to objects 
of hearmg, but to what was purely 
moral and intellectual; and we speak 
in a manner perfectly intelligible to all 
When we expatiate on the beauty of a 
sentiment, or even the beauty of a doc- 
trine and the beauty of a speculation. 

In this way, when we propose to gain 
the acquiescence of others in a particu- 
lar doctrine, there are two distinct cir- 
cumstances to be attended to—the de- 
gree of its beauty by which we can 
recommend it to the taste, or the de- 
gree of its evidence by which we can 
recommend it to the understanding. 
There can only be one opinion on the 
question, which of these two claims 
should have the precedency. It is the 
boast of the philosopher. that Truth is 
the idol whom he worships and that he 
will follow wherever the light of evi- 
dence shall carry him, though it should 
land him in conclusions the most nause- 
ous and the most unpalatable. A sys- 
tem may have elegance and simplicity 
to recommend it, and be decked in all 
the ornaments which the eloquence of 
its supporters can throw around it ; but 
if a single flaw be found in its evidence, 





* Preached at Cupar on a Sacramental Fast, 30th 
: une, 1813. In the College Chapel, Glasgow, 14th April, 
816. 


it from that moment becomes the phi- 
losopher’s scorn; it is his glory to own 
no authority but Truth, and he throws 
aside the beautiful speculation as fit 
only for the amusement of childhood. 

Now if this be the attribute of a good 
philosopher, why should it not be the 
attribute of a good divine? All that 
we plead for is the paramount and ex- 
clusive authority of evidence, and that 
the power of evidence upon the judg- 
ment shall at all times carry it over the 
power of beauty upon the taste. All 
that we demand—and in the demand 
we see nothing but fairness and modes- 
ty—is that a doctrine in theology be 
tried upon the same principles as a doc- 
trine in science—that the question shall 
be not what is the most alluring by its 
beauty, but what is the most convincing 
by its proofs. 

In the prosecution, therefore, of the 
following discourse, I shall endeavour 
to lay before you the evidence that we 
have for the doctrine of the text. That 
evidence resolves itself into two kinds— 
the evidence of Scripture, and the evi- 
dence of direct observation. 

I shall be very short on the evidence 
which Scripture affords for the doctrine 
of the text. The text itself is perfectl 
decisive. It is not in the power of it 
lustration to make it more explicit ; and 
though it had stood unsupported and 
alone, it carries home the universal cor- 
ruption of man with an evidence and 
an authority which it is not in the pow- 
er of sophistry to resist or to explain away. 
We forbear bringing forward any more 
quotations—not because we are at a 
loss to find them, but because of the 
multiplicity of passages which offer 
themselves—because it would be diffi- 
cult within: the limits of a sermon to 


xi. | a 
exhibit even so much as an abridged 
view of the testimonies to the depravity 
of man which lie scattered over almost 
every page of the Bible. Without 
making so much as a single refer- 
ence to particular passages, I would 
ask any man, upon his fair and honest 
perusal of the New ‘Testament, to tell 
me what he conceives to be the general 
purpose of Christ’s coming into the 
world? Did not He come into the 
world upon a ministry of reconciliation ? 
and does not this imply that before that 
ministry was accomplished the world 
was at variance with God? Is not His 


- gospel offered to all men as a remedy ? 


and does not the very conception of a 
remedy imply the previous existence of 
a disease? It is not enough to say 
that he came to remedy our ignorance 
by instruction. This is true; but did 
He not also come as a propitiation ? and 
does not the very term propitiation im- 
ply the existence of sin? Could I see 
any traces of a distinction made by the 
gospel in the terms which it offered to 
different individuals, then I might un- 
derstand that it did not proceed upon 
the corruption of man as a constant and 


universal fact in the history of the spe- 


cies. But when [I find that all are ad- 
dressed in the same language—when I 
see no exceptions provided for in the 
charge given to the apostles to preach 
repentance and the remission of sins— 
when I see that one and all of us are 
called upon to embrace the gospel on 
precisely the same terms with the most 
abandoned of sinners—when I see that 


to become Christians every man of us 


must have the same faith and the same 
baptism, which is the symbol of purifi- 
cation from guilt—what am I to infer 
but that the gospel views all of us as in 
the same circumstances, as labouring 
under the malignity of the same disease, 
and in the same direful state of aliena- 
tion from heaven, from which it is the 
kind office of a generous Saviour to re- 
deem and to restore us? If any man 
says that he is not included in the doc- 
trine of the text, and that he forms an 
exception to its universality, then Christ 
may ke his teacher, He may be his ex- 
ample, but He is no longer what the 
Bible represents Him—his Saviour; 
and that endearing title which forms all 


THE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 46% 


the joy of my life and all the hope of 
my immortality, is little better in refer- 
ence to him than the mockery of a 
name; Christianity considered as a 
scheme of recovery for sinners is fritter- 
ed into nothing, and the words grace 
and atonement and propitiation, which 
force themselves upon the eye in almost 
every column of the New Testament, 
are so many empty sounds, without im- 
port and without significancy. 

To support the doctrine of my text I 
do not need to refer to the authority of 
particular passages—I refer to the essen- 
tial character of, the New Dispensation, 
the grand object of which is to seek and 
to save that which is lost; and when I 
am told that there is no other name 
given under heaven by which man can 
be saved but the name of Jesus, what 
am I to understand but that all must 
obtain the shelter and the patronage of 
that name before they can secure their 
admittance into heaven? If there isa 
man among us who can stand upon the 
perfection of his own character, then I 
say of him that he is independent of 
that patronage ; that he can be saved 
by another name than the name of 
Jesus ; that he can approach the throne 
of the Almighty in the name of his 
own righteousness, and can appeal for 
his passport to heaven to the purity 
which has guided him, and to the virtue 
which has adorned him. It strikes me 
that the whole of Christianity proceeds 
upon the inability of man to make this 
appeal—that what he cannot do for 
himself a kind Saviour has undertaken 
to do for him ; that He announces Him- 
self the Saviour of all who trust in Him, 
because all stand in need of his interpo- 
sition; and that it is not by works of 
righteousness which we have done, but 
according to His mercy that He hath 
saved us. ‘To disown the principle of 
the text, then, appears to me to be 
equivalent to an entire subversion of 
Christianity. It would be cutting away 
the ground upon which the whole fabric 
is supported; it would destroy it as a 
scheme of reconciliation proposed to all, 
because needed by all. It might remain 
a beautiful system of morals, which 
poetry might deck with images, and 
eloquence expatiate on with visionary 
rapture, but all the life which gave 


468 : 


substance and animation to its morality 
would be withdrawn. Though the 
doctrine of corruption were abandoned 
as a general principle, the consciousness 
and the despair of guilt would still 
continue to haunt the bosom of every 
individual ; there would be no principle 
to urge him to exertion, because the 
experience of every one would tell him 
that this exertion was unavailing—the 
splendid virtues of the gospel would 
only serve to remind him of his errors, 
and to multiply upon his head the ter- 
rors of its violated authority ; the un- 
expiated sentence of guilt would still 
hang over him; and if conscience dis- 
charged its part with faithful severity, 
he would soon feel the system of morals 
in the New Testament to be so perfect 
and so beautiful, that, without the stim- 
ulus of gospel motives and gospel prin- 
ciples, it were vain to contemplate and 
hopeless to aspire after it. 
This is all the argument for the cor- 
ruption of man which I shall urge at 
resent on the ground of Scriptural 
authority. But I take the opportunity 
of stating, what I hold to be an unde- 
niable principle, that the authority of 
the Bible is not only completely deci- 
sive on this subject, but paramount to 
every other. I hold it to be not only 
impious but unphilosophical to go about 
with an attempt to mould and conform 
an authoritative doctrine of the Bible 
either by the arguments of human rea- 
soning, or by the illustrations of human 
fancy. This, you will observe, is no 
impeachment upon the supremacy of 
reason. Let. reason be employed in 
pronouncing upon the claims of Chris- 
tianity to be a religion from heaven, 
and in proving that the Bible is not a 
fabrication of impostors, but the authen- 
tic record of inspired truth; let it be 
further employed in ascertaining, upon 
the approved principles of criticism, the 
sense of its original language, and in 
bringing forward acorrect representation 
of that sense to the illiterate; but after 
these are accomplished, it is the part of 
reason to resign her office, for if she 
advance a single inch further she steps 
beyond her province ; and we appeal to 
any man who has made a philosophical 
survey of the human faculties, if there 
be not as much falsehood and error in 


THE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 


[SERM. 
pronouncing with certainty upon what 
reason is incompetent to judge of, as in 
shrinking from the office of examination 
with the safe and certain materials of 
judgment before you. It is the part 
of reason, amid the clashing pretensions 


of the various systems which are pro- 


posed to it, to seek for the genuine rec- 
ord of the divine will; but it is also 
the part of reason to listen exclusively 
to the voice of inspiration after she has 
found it; and I am not renouncing the 
authority of my judging principle but 
following its dictates, when, after the 
Bible is established as the directory of 
my faith, I offer to it the unconditional 
surrender of my understanding, and 
submit my mind as a blank surface to 
whatever the Almighty, by His word 
and by His doctrine, chooses to engrave 
upon it. 

The doctrine of the text forms to a 
certain extent an exception to the above 
observations. When the article of faith 
is without the range of human experi- 
ence, then there is nothing for it but an 
unreserved submission of the mind. 
Such subjects as the dignity of our Sa- 
viour’s person—the existence of higher 
orders of beings—the agency of evil 
spitits in the affairs of the world—the 
counsels of heaven—the efficacy of the 
atoning sacrifice in bringing guilty man 
to favour and to immortality—the influ- 
ences of the Spirit—these, and many 
others, stand beyond the limits of unas- 
sisted observation, and on them the rev- 
elation of God must therefore be received 
not merely as the supreme but as the 
only authority. But we meet with 
other assertions in the Bible which 
come within the familiar experience of 
human beings. and which can theréfore 
be tried by that experience. A very 
simple example of this is when our Sa- 
viour says to his countrymen—* When 
ye see a cloud rise out of the west, 
straightway ye say there cometh a 
shower, and so it is; and when ye see 
the south wind blow. ye say that it will 
be heat, and it cometh to pass.” Our 
Saviour here tells what prognostics 
were made in the country of Judea, 
and what kind of weather usually fol- 
lowed them. The truth of this asser- 
tion comes within the testimony of the 
senses. If confirmed by that testimony, 


~ 


xm] THE DOCTRINE OF 
it just happens in the way that the evi- 
dence of His truth and of His divinity 
would lead us to anticipate ; but if con- 
tradicted by that testimony, it would 
have the effect of unsettling our faith— 
it would stand an impeachment upon 
His authority as a messenger | from 
heaven. and we might feel ourselves 
justified in withdrawing our confidence 
from a teacher who affirmed to be true 
what we know to be false by an inde- 
pendent channel of evidence. The doc- 
trine of the text is a higher example of 
the same kind. By asserting the cor- 


ruption of man, it asserts a fact which 


comes within the cognizance of the hu- 
man faculties, and the reality of which 
may be tried by a direct appeal to the 
evidence of consciousness. We have 
the law of God written in our hearts, 
and we have that law written in a more 
perfect .and explicit manner. upon the 
well-authenticated record of inspiration. 
The question simply is——Do we come 
up to the purity of that law? And it 
is a question which falls within the le- 
gitimate boundaries of human experi- 
ence. I therefore pass on from the evi- 
dence of Scripture to the evidence of 
human observation, and I do it for the 
sake of those who have a greater respect 
for the latter authority than for the 
former. Qn the principle of being all 
things to all men that we may gain 
some, it is the part of the Christian 
teacher to withhold no argument which 
may be effectual in gaining the concur- 
rence of those to whom he addresses 
himself. The corruption of human na- 
ture is perhaps the most offensive doc- 
trine of Christianity to the tasteful 
admirers of fine sentiment and beautiful 
morality. They may not be ashamed 
if their orthodoxy is impeached, but 
they may be made perhaps to take the 
alarm if their philosophy is questioned ; 
and if we can once bring the evidence 
of observation to support us, it may 
compel their acknowledgment at a 
time when the authority of Scripture 
would be found ineffectual. A man 
may carry in his speculations an indif- 
ference to the Bible, and yet sustain his 
reputation in the cultivated and literary 
orders; but no man can turn away 
from the evidence of observation with- 
out bringing his character for philoso- 


HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 468 
phy into disrepute. It is by following 
this evidence that modern science has 
reached her wonderful elevation in 
these latter days; and if by the same 
instrument we can establish the doc- 
trme of the text, it may be the means 
of clearing away from Christianity one 
of her chief stumbling-blocks—it may 
extend her triumphs in a new quarter, 
and by giviffe her an ascendency over 
the minds of the speculative. it may lead 
them to cast down their lofty imagina- 
tions—to bring every thought of their 
hearts into the captivity of the gospel, 
and into the entire obedience of its hu- 
mility and its righteousness. 

The question of fact, then, which em- 
ploys us is—In how far man attains to 
the perfection of righteousness? and I 
conceive that to save much false argu- 
ment and much superfluous illustration, 
we may bring this question at once to 
a decisive and effectual touchstone—I 
would bring his conduct to an imme- 
diate comparison with the first great 
commandment of the law. To estimate 
the degree of closeness and purity with 
which he maintains his perseverance in 
the path of duty, I would fasten upon 
the greatest of all his duties, and to 
which every other is referable—I mean 
his duty to God; and I put it to the 
conscience of the most perfect man up- 
on earth, in how far every action of 
his life is under the direction of this 
great and authoritative principle? Is 
(tod always present to his thoughts? 
Does the fear of Him ever accompany 
him through the hourly and familar 
movements of his history? Is His 
authority as a lawgiver the perpetual 
point of appeal, to which he is sure to 
repair amid the various cases and diffi- 
culties which occur to him? Instead 
of abandoning his conduct to the play 
of earthly passions and the calculation 
of earthly principles, does he feel every 
moment of his life the fear of God ope- 
rating within him, and exerting the as- 
cendency of a great master-principle to 
control all the inferior appetites and pro- 
pensities of his nature? My own ex- 
perience tells me that I could answer 
most decisively for myself; and I put 
it to your consciences if the answer be 
not applicable to you. So far from feel- 
ing the fear of God to be a sentiment 


470 


of constant and universal influence, 
there is a great majority of our time in 
which we never think of Him. We 
may at times be visited by a holy feel- 
ing of His presence and authority, but 
the devout affection vanishes with the 
retirement which gave it birth. The 
mien and daylight of the world are 
ever driving away from us the thought 
of a present Deity ; the objects of time 
engross every faculty; and at the very 
moment that the countenance of man 
speaks him to be most in earnest, and 
that the profoundest of his wisdom is 
at its busiest exercise, we shall find that 
it is the interest of this paltry and per- 
ishable scene which absorbs him. 
Look to his mind, and in the subjects 
which most frequently engage it you 
see nothing there of the grandeur of 
eternity, and no sublime reference to 
that mighty Being who gave it all its 
sense and all its inspiration. For the 
greater part of the day God is not in 
all his thoughts; and though he owes 
to Him every breath which he draws 
and every comfort which he enjoys, yet 
his conduct, so far from being under 
the certain guidance and authority of 
the divine law, is at the mercy of every 
caprice which plays upon him, and 
every fluctuating vision which comes 
across his senses. 

The simple question is——Ought this 
to be so? For if it ought not, man is 
in a state of actual corruption; he falls 
below the standard of his duty; and 
the doctrine of the text has the tes- 
timony of experience to confirm it. 
This habitual negligence of God is a 
decisive fact furnished by observation ; 
and we have only to compare it with 
the law written in our hearts and the 
law written in the New Testament, 
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy mind. This is the first 
and great commandment, says Jesus 
Christ, whose authority as a teacher 
from heaven reason cannot refuse to 
acknowledge. But let us appeal to the 
natural conscience of man—and it gives 
us precisely the same answer. Think 
of God as your constant benefactor— 
that He made you, that He sustains 
you in every moment of your existence 
—that, to express ourselves with the 


THE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 


simple energy of mspiration, in Him 
you live, and move, and have your be- 
ing—that in all the joys which are scat- 
tered over the pilgrimage of life, we see 
nothing but the kindness of God always 
exerting itself in our favour, and meet- 
ing us in every direction—that though 
we seldom look beyond the creatures 
which surround us, it is God who 
reigns in these creatures, and makes 
them subservient to His most wise, 
His most gracious, His most benevo- 
lent purposes—that though in the hey- 
day of youth we are carried along the 
tide of gaiety without care and with- 
out reflection, it is God who gives to 
the spirit of man all its cheerfulness— 
that though we stop short in our grati- 
tude at the benefactor who relieved and 
at the friend who supported us, it is 
God who reigns over the constitution 
of the mind, and could by a single 
word of His power make every com- 
panion abandon us, and every friend 
look upon us with an altered counte- 
nance—that though [ call the house in 
which I live my own, and find in the 
endearments of my family my repose 
and my happiness, it is God who gave 
me my home, who spreads security 
around it, and fills it with all its ciari- 
ties—that though my path in society 
be dignified by the homage and civility 
of my acquaintances, it is God who 
reigns in the human breast, and admin- 
isters all the delight of social inter- 
course—that though my eye expatiates 
in rapture on the landscape around me, 
it is the hving God who beautifies the 
scene. and gives it all its magnificence 
and all its glory ; in short, that every- 
thing we enjoy is a gift—that in what- 
ever quarter happiness is met with, a 
burden of obligation and dependence 
lies upon us—that we have nothing 
which we did not receive—that our all 
is suspended on God, and that to Him 
we owe all the praise, all the gratitude, 
all the obedience. 

Now, will any man who is acquainted 
with the movements of his own breast, 
say that this praise and this obedience 
are actually given? Are not the pleas- 
ures of life often tasted without ac- 
knowledgment? Is not the conduct 
of life often proceeded in without any 
reference to the will and authority of 


# 
ety 


[SERM_ 


xu. | THE DOCTRINE OF 
Him who is the author of it? Is not 
the mind in a state of habitual estrange- 
ment from God, His existence absent 
from our reflections, and His supremacy 
asa Judge and as a Lawgiver absent 
from our principles? Go to whatever 
quarter you please for happiness, there 
is no escaping the conclusion that God 
is the giver of it, in His pervading 
energy which gives effect and operation 
to all things. You cannot fly out of 
His presence, nor repair beyond the lim- 
its of His sovereignty. Of all the im- 
possibles which ever were attempted, 
there is none so wild and so irrational 
as to attempt an independence upon 
God. It is in virtue of Him that you 
are held together. He measures out 
to you every moment of your existence. 
He gives you not merely the air you 
breathe, but He gives you the faculty 
of breathing. He provides for you not 
merely the external goods which are 
scattered around you in such bounteous 
profusion, but it is He who furnishes 

ou with the capacity of enjoying them. 
You talk of the pleasures of the world, 
and fly to them as your refuge and 
your consolation against the displeasure 
of an offended Deity, but think that it 
is only by a continuance of His un- 
merited favour that you have these 
pleasures to fly to. He can take them 
away from you; or, what perhaps is a 
still more striking demonstration of 
. His sovereignty, He can make them no 
longer pleasures to you. He reigns 
within as well as without you. To 
Him you owe not merely what is ex- 
ternal, but to Him you owe the taste 
and the faculty which enjoys it. He 
can pervert these faculties— He can 
change your pleasures into disgust— 
He can derange the constitution of the 
inner man, and make you loathe as 
tasteless and unsatisfying what you at 
present indulge in with delight. or look 
forward to with rapture. He is all in 
all. The whole of our being hangs 
upon Him, and there is no getting 
away from His universal, from His 
ceaseless, from His unexcepted agency. 
Now, do the Almighty the same justice 
that, you would do to an earthly bene- 
factor; measure the extent of His 
claims upon you by the extent of His 


HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 471 
you which, as your Creator and as your 
constant preserver, He has a right to 
exercise ; think of your perpetual de- 
pendence, and that all around you and 
within you—for every moment and par 
ticle of your existence, is upheld by 
God; and tell me, if either in the 
thoughts of your heart or in the actions 
of your life, you come up to the demand 
which His justice and His authority 
have a title to prefer against you? The 
answer is obvious. It may be collected 
from the heart and the history of every 
individual. Man, though the most per- 
fect of his kind, falls short of the glory 
of God. He is forgetful of the hand 
that formed him, and of the right hand 
that guides and that sustains him. 
There is a delusion upon this supject. 
If we look abroad on the face of soci- 
ety we must be struck with the diver- 
sity of character in the individuals who 
compose it—some, it is allowed, in the 
estimation of the world are execrable 
for their crimes, but others, in the same 
estimation, are illustrious for their vir- 
tues. In that general mass of corrup- 
tion to which we would reduce our un- 
fortunate species, is there, it may be 
asked, no solitary example of what is 
pure and honourable and lovely? Do 
we never meet with the charity which 
melts at suffermg—with the honesty 
which disclaims and is proudly superior 
to falsehood—with the active benefi- 
cence which gives to alms its time and 
its labour—with the modesty which 
shrinks from notice and gives all its 
sweetness to retirement—with the gen- 
tleness which breathes peace to all, and 
throws a beautiful lustre over the walks 
of domestic society? If we find these 
virtues to be sometimes exemplified in 
the characters of those arovna us, is not 
this an argument which is supplied by 
experience against the doctrine of the 
text? And will it not serve in part to 
redeem humanity from that sweeping 
and indiscriminate charge of corruption 
which is so often advanced against it in 
all the pride and intolerance of ortho- 
doxy? What better evidence can be 
given of our sense of duty toward God, 
than adherence to His law? and are not 
the virtues which I have just now spe- 


| cified part of that law? are not they the 


benefits ; think of the authority over | very virtues which His authority imposes 


472 THE DOCTRINE OF 
upon us, and which impart such a charm 
to the morality of the New Testament? 

Now, to carry you at once into the 
bottom of this doctrine, let it be ob- 
served, that though the religious princi- 
ple can never exist without the amiable 
and virtuous conduct of the New Testa- 
ment, that conduct may in some meas- 
ure exist without the religious principle. 
Men may be led to precisely the same 
conduct upon the impulse of very differ- 
ent principles. A man may be gentle 
because it is a prescription of the divine 
law; or he may be gentle because he 
is naturally of a peaceful and indolent 
constitution; or he may be gentle be- 
cause he sees it to be an amiable grace- 
fulness with which he wishes to adorn 
his own character ; or he may be gentle 
because it is the ready way of propitia- 
ting the friendship of those around him; 
or he may be gentle because taught to 
observe it as a part of courtly and fash- 
ionable deportment; and what was im- 
planted by education, may come in time 
to be confirmed by habit and experience. 
Now, it is only under the first of these 
principles that there is any religion in 
gentleness. The other principles may 
produce all the outward appearance of 
this virtue, and much even of its inward 
complacency, and yet be as distinct 
from the religious principle as they are 
distinct from one another. ‘To infer the 
strength of a religious principle from 
the taste of the human mind for what is 
graceful and lovely in character, would 
be as preposterous as to infer it from the 
admiration of a fine picture or a cultiva- 
ted Jandscape. ‘They are not to be con- 
founded. They occupy a different place 
even in the classification of philosophy. 
We do not deny that the admiration of 
what is fine in character is a principle 
of a higher order than the admiration 
of what is fine in external scenery. So 
is a taste for what is beautiful in the 
prospect before us, a principle of a high- 
er order than a taste for the sensualities 
of the epicure; but they, one and all of 
them, stand at a wide distance from the 
religious’ principle; and whether.it be 
taste or temper, or the love of popular- 
ity, or the high impulse of honourable 
feeling, or even the love of truth anda 
natural principle of integrity, the vir- 
tues in question may be so unconnected 


HUMAN DEPRAVITY. — [SERM, 
with religion as to flourish in the world 
and be rewarded with its admiration, 
even though a God were expunged from 
the belief, and immortality from the 
prospect of the species. 

The virtues, then, to which the ene- 
mies of our doctrine make such a confi- 
dent appeal may have no force what- 
ever in the argument, because, properly 
speaking, they may not be exemplifica- 
tions of the religious principle. If you 
do what is virtuous because God tells 
you so, then, and then only, do you give 
us a fair example of the authority of re- 
ligion over your practice. But if you 
do it merely because it is lovely, because 
it is honourable, or because it is a fine 
moral accomplishment, I will not be be- 
hind my neighbours in giving the testi- » 
mony of my admiration; but I cannot 
submit to such an error either of con- 
ception or of language, as to say that 
there is any religion in all this. I am 
not for expunging the lovely and the 
honourable from the character of man. 
These qualities have all my friendship 
and all my applause; and I give them 
them the most substantial evidence of 
my regard when, instead of leaving 
them to their own solitary claims upon 
the human heart, I call in the aid of re- 
ligion, and support them by the author- 
ity of the New Testament—* Whatso- 
ever things are pure, or lovely, or honest, 
or of good report; if there be any vir- 
tue, if there be any praise, think of these 
things.” But I will not allow that the 
mere circumstance of their being lovely 
shall be suffered to degrade or to extin- 
guish the authority of religion ; nor can 
I endure such an injustice to the Author 
of all that is graceful, both in nature 
and in morality, as that the native claims 
of virtue shall usurp in our admiration 
the place of God—of Him who gave to 
virtue all its charms, and who formed 
the heart of man to love and to admire 
them. 

Be not deceived, then, into a rejection 
of the text by the specimens of moral 
excellence which are to be met with in 
society, or by the praise which your own 
virtue extorts from an applauding neigh- 
bourhood. Virtue may exist, and to such 
a degree, too, as is sufficient to consti- 
tute it a lovely object in the eyes of the 
world; but if in the cultivation of that 


x11. | THE DOCTRINE OF 
virtue there be no reference of the mind 
to the authority of God, there is no 
religion. Such virtue as this has its 
reward in its natural consequences, in 
the admiration of others, and in the 
delights of conscious. satisfaction; but 
I cannot see why God will reward it a 
the capacity of your master, when His 
service was not the principle of it; nor 
do I see how He will reward it in the ca- 
pacity of your judge. when in the whole 
process of virtuous feeling, and virtuous 
sentiment, and virtuous conduct, you did 
not for a single moment carry in your 
heart any reference to Him as your law- 
giver. I do not deny that there are 
many such examples of virtue in the 
world, but then I insist upon it that 
they cannot be put down to the account 
of religion. They often may and act- 
ually do exist in a state of entire sepa- 
ration from the religious principle; and 
in that even they go no farther than to 
prove that your tasie is unvitiated—that 
your temper is amiable—that your se- 
cret principles promote the peace and 
welfare of the community, and will be 
rewarded with its admiration. It is 
well that you act your part aright as 
a member of society; and religion. by 
maxing :{ one of its injunctions, gives 
us the very best security that wherever 
its influence prevails it will be done in 
the most perfect manner; but the point 
which I labour to impress is, that a man 
may be what we all understand by a 
good member of society, without the 
authority of God as his legislator being 
either recognized or acted upon. I do 
not say that his error lies in being a 
good member of society: this, though 
a circumstance, is a very fortunate one. 
The error lies in his having discarded 
the authority of God, or rather in never 
having admitted the influence of that 
authority over his principles. I want 
to guard him against the delusion that 
the principle which he has, ever can be 
accepted as a substitute for the princi- 
ple which he has not; or that the very 
highest sense of duty which his situa- 
tion as a member of society impresses 
upon his feelings will ever be received 
asean atonement for wanting that sense 
of duty to God which he ought to feel 
in the far more exalted capacity of His 
servant and candidate for His approba- 


60 


HUMAN DEPLAVITY. 473 
tion. JI stand upon the high ground 
that he is the subject of the Almighty, 
nor will I shrink from revealing the 
whole extent of my principles. Let his 
path in society be ever so illustrious by 
the virtues which adorn it—let every 
word and every performance be as hon- 
ourable as a proud sense of integrity 
can make it; let the salutations of the 
market-place mark him out as the most 
respectable of the citizens, and the grat- 
itude of a thousand families sing the 
praises of his beneficence to the world ; 
if the actor in this splendid exhibition 
carry in his mind no reference to the 
authority of God, I do not hesitate a 
moment to pronounce him unworthy, 
nor shall all the execrations of generous 
but mistaken principle deter me from 
puttmmg forth my hand to strip him of 
his honours. What! is the world to 
gaze in admiration on this fair spectacle 
of virtue, and am I to be told that the 
Being who gave such faculties to one 
of His children, and provides the thea- 
tre for their exercise—that the Being 
who called this scene into existence and 
gave it all its beauties, that He may 
be innocently forgotten and neglected ? 
Shall I give a deceitful lustre to the vir- 
tues of him who is unmindful of his 
God; and with all the grandeur of eter- 
nity before me, can I learn to admire 
these short-lived exertions which only 
shed a fleeting brilliancy over a paltry 
and perishable scene? It is true that 
he who is faithful in little will be also 
counted faithful in much, and when 
regard to God is the principle of this 
fidelity the very humblest wishes of be- 
nevolence will be recorded. But its most 
splendid exertions without this principle 
have no inheritance in heaven. Hu- 
man praise and human eloquence may 
acknowledge if. but the Discerner of 
hearts never will. The heart may be 
the seat of every amiable feeling, and 
every claim that comes to it in the shape 
of human misery may find a welcome ; 
but if the authority of religious princi- 
ple be not there, it is not right with 
God, and he who owns it will die in his 
sins—he is in a state of impenitency. 

Having thus disposed of those virtues 
which exist in a state of independence 
upon the religious principle, we must 
be forced to recur to the doctrine of the 


474 


text in all its original aggravation. 
Man is corrupt, and the estrangement 
of his heart from God is the decisive 
evidence of it. Hvery day of his life 
the first commandment of the law is 
trampled upon, and it is on that com- 
mandment that the authority of the 
whole is suspended. His best exertions 
are unsound in their very principle ; and 
as the love of God reigns not within 
him, all that has usurped the name of 
virtue and has deceived us by its sem- 
blance, must be a mockery and a delu- 
sion. 

But the doctrine of the text might be 
vindicated even upon lower principles. 
I might throw out of sight entirely the 
first great commandment of the law, 
and direct my exclusive attention to the 
second—Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
as thyself. I might apply to the human 
character man’s own favourite touch- 
stone, and without any reference what- 
ever to the authority of God might try 
it by the great law of benevolence, re- 
posing on its own charms and its own 
obligations. 

This my time will not permit me to 
do, but I think it necessary to guard 
from misapprehension what I have said 
as to benevolence existing in a state of 
separation from piety. Do I mean by 
this to disconnect benevolence from the 
practice of the Christian, or to throw 
upon it the slightest aspersion? No, 
my brethren, benevolence is like to 
piety: he who wants benevolence has 
no pretensions to piety—he who loves 
not his brother whom he hath seen, 
does not love God whom he hath not 
seen; and let all speculation be done 
away, and all argument be given to the 
winds, rather than that this lovely and 
characteristic feature of the gospel should 
suffer the slightest obscuration. By 
putting the case of an amiable and ro- 
mantic benevolence existing in a state 
of separation from the sense of God, 
and by lifting a voice of condemnation 
against it, I may have shocked the 
tenderness of your feelings, and made 
you recoil in aversion as from the harsh 
voice of a stern and unrelenting ortho- 
doxy. Spare your agitations, my breth- 
ren. I have done no man injustice, for 
the case is imaginary. Benevolence 
may make some brilliant exhibitions 


THE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 


[SERM. 


of herself without the instigations of the 
religious principle; she may make some 
romantic sacrifices, and the quantity of — 
money surrendered may be far beyond 
the average charities of the world; but 
give me a man who carries out benevo- 
lence in the whole extent of its sacri- 
fices ; who labours unknown in scenes 
where there is no brilliancy to reward 
him; who supports the habit of un- 
wearied well-doing amid the growlings 
of ingratitude and the provocations of 
dishonesty ; who maintains a uniform 
tone of kindness in the retirement of 
his own house and amid the irksome 
annoyances of his own family; who 
endures hardness as a good soldier of 
Jesus Christ; whose humanity exists as 
vigorously amid the reproaches and the 
calumny and the contradiction of sin- 
ners, as amid the sad pictures of weep- 
ing orphans and interesting cottagers— 
I maintain, my brethren, that no such 
benevolence exists without a deeply- 
seated principle of piety lying at the 
bottom of it. Walk from Dan to Beer- 
sheba, and away from Christianity and 
beyond the circle of its influences, there 
is positively no such benevolence to be 
found. The patience and the meekness, 
and all the more difficult exercises of 
benevolence, must be nourished by the 
influences of heaven, and looking be- 
yond all that dazzles the theatre of 
the world, must have its eye fixed on a 
better and a more enduring country. 
Kven the most splendid enterprises of 
benevolence which the world ever wit- 
nessed can be traced to the operation 
of what the world laughs at as a Quaker- 
ish and Methodistical piety; and we 
appeal to the abolition of the slave trade, 
and to the still nobler abolition of igno- 
rance and vice which is now accom- 
plishing in the pagan and uncivilized 
countries of the earth, for a proof that, 
in good-will to man, as well as in glory 
to God, your men of piety bear away 
the palm of superiority in triumph. 
I conclude with two observations. If 
all Scripture and all experience can be 
brought in to support the doctrine of my 
text, should not this stir the question 
within each individual who now hears 
me—W hat shall I do to be saved? . If 
there be a throne in heaven and a God 
sitting upon that throne, what is to 


xu. J THE DOCTRINE OF 
become of me who have trampled on 
the solemn authority of His law, and 
come under the full weight of its con- 
demnation? I may wrap myself in a 
general feeling of security that God is 
merciful, but in a question of such 
mighty import as the favour of my God 
and the fate of my eternity, I should 
like to have some better security than 
my own feelings which may be delu- 
sive.and my own conjecture which may 
berashand ignorant. Ihave noright to 
trust tomy own conjectures in this, and 
far less have I any such right in the face 
of the authoritative message which God 
has sent to the world upon this very sub- 
ject. An actuat embassy came from 
God to man upon an errand of recon- 
ciliation about 2000 years ago, and the 
records of this embassy have come down 
to us collected into a volume, and lying 
within the reach of all who will take the 
trouble of stretching forth their hand to 
it. Why spend my strength upon any 
conjecture on the subject, when the ob- 
vious expedient of consulting the record 
is before me? Surely what God says 
of Himself is of higher authority and 
signification than what I think of Him, 
and if He has chosen to reveal not merely 
that He is merciful, but that there is a 
way in which He has chosen to be so, 
nothing remains for me but to learn of 
that way, and obediently to walk in it. 
If He says there is no other name given 
under heaven but the name of Jesus; 
if He says that it is only in Christ that 
He reconciles the world to Himself; if 
He says that redemption is only in Him 
whom God hath set forth to be the pro- 
pitiation through faith in His blood, 
that He might be just and the justifier 
of Him who believeth in Jesus, what 
have I to do but to count these sayings 
faithful and worthy of all acceptation ? 
I have been perhaps too long of coming 
to this conclusion, and adopted too cir- 
cuitous a line of argument to bring you 
to it; and while I have endeavoured to 
maintain through the whole of this pro- 
cess the forms and the phraseology of a 
philosophical argument, which I know 
not whether I should have magnified, I 
tgjoice to think that many a simple cotta- 
ger has got before me, and that under his 
humble roof there exists a wisdom of a 
more exalted kind than mere philosophy 


HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 475 
can ever reach—the wisdom of a Chris- 

; tian who loves his Bible, and rests with 
firm assurance upon his Saviour. “ Fa- 
ther, I thank Thee that while Thou hast 
hid these things from the wise and pru- 
dent, Thou hast revealed them to babes, 
even so, Father, for so it seemeth good 
in Thy sight.” - 

My next observation is in answer to 
this question—You have attempted to 
establish the fact of human corruption 
—you have recommended a simple ac- 
quiescence in the doctrine of the Saviour; 
now what becomes of the corruption after 
this? Must we just be doing with it asa 
tremendous necessity of our nature bear- 
ing down every power of resistance, and 
against which it were in vain to strug- 
gle? For the answer of this question I 
make the same reference as before to 
the record. He who is in Christ Jesus 
is a new creature—sin or corruption 
hath no more dominion over him, and 
the very want which constituted the 
main element of the disease, is made up 
to him. He wanted the love of God, 
but that-love is shed abundantly into 
the heart of every true Christian by the 
power of the Holy Ghost. He wants 
the love of his neighbour, but God en- 
ters into covenant with all who ac- 
knowledge His Son and embrace the 
Saviour as He is offered to them in the 
covenant—He puts this law in their 
hearts, and writes it in their minds— 
He works in them and dwells in them, 
so that He becomes their God, and they 
become his people. The Holy Spirit is 
given to them who ask it in faith, and 
the habitual prayer of—Support me in 
the performance of this duty, or carry 
me in safety through this trial of my 
heart and my principles—is heard with 
acceptance. The power of Christ ismade 
to rest on those who look to Him, and 
they will find that to be their experience 
which Paul found to be His—they will 
be able to do all things through Christ 
strengthening them. Is all this strange 
and mysterious and foreign to the gene- 
ral style of your conceptions ? then, my 
brethren, be alarmed for your safety. 
It is not the peculiar notions of this 
man, nor the still more peculiar phrase- 
ology of that man, which you profess to 
be strange to, it is the very notions and 
the very phraseology of the Bible, and 





476 


you are bringing yourself under pre- 
cisely the same relationship with God 
that you do with a distant acquaintance 
whom you insult by sending his.letter 
unopened, or despise, by suffering it to 
lie beside you without counting it worthy 
of a perusal. Let this day of fasting 


DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 


[SERM. 


offer of forgiveness for the past, and a 
provision laid before you by which all 
who believe are carried forward to amend- 
ment and progressive virtue for the fu- 
ture. It is open toalland at the taking 
of all, but in proportion to the frankness 
and freeness and cordiality of the offer 


bring you under a conviction of your | will be the severity of that awful threat- 


sins, and let this salutary conviction shut 
you up to the only remaining alterna- 
tive—even the refuge set before you in 
the gospel. You will there find a free 


ening to those who despise it—How 
shall they escape if they neglect so great 
a salvation ? 


SERMON XIII. 


Divine Manifestations.* 


“ He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me ; and he that loveth me 
shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”—Joun xiv. 21. 


Ir were well if we could strip every 
term, and every process signified by 
that term, of all the unnecessary myste- 
riousness which is annexed to it. To 
manifest is to show plainly; and the 
question comes to be, In what sense 
can an invisible being, as God or Jesus 
Christ, show himself plainly to creatures 
in this world? It appears to me that 
there may be two ways of it. First, 
you all understand what it is to have 
the conception of a distant friend. Your 
firm belief that he is your friend, is one 
thing ; your lively conception of him is 
another. The belief may remain steady 
—the conception may vary every hour 
in clearness and intensity. Have you 
never experienced a livelier conception 
at one time than another of his unwea- 
ried regard, of his trusty attachment, of 
his affectionate looks, of his benignant 
countenance? Yes, you have, and in 
those moments, a finer glow of tender- 
ness has come over you, and a feeling 
of more joyful security in the possession 


of his friendship. Now, the same God. 


‘who can endow you with one faculty, 
can endow you with another, or bring 
that other, when it pleases Him, into 
livelier exercise. The same God who 
can work in you the faith and conception 
of a distant friend, can work in you the 


* Preached at Kilmany, 20th March, 1814. At Glas- 
gow, in February, 1817. 


faith and conception of Himself. It is 
very true that conception may often out- 
strip a well-crounded faith; but God can 
prevent this; He can bring the one 
under the control of the other. He does 
so in the case of your friend, and your 
conceptions of him, however exquisite 
and lively, are restramed by the evi- 
dence of memory from running into 
wildness. Your conception of him may 
almost brighten into the vivacity of sense, 
and yet you may conceive no more of 
him than what you know him to be, 
and what you remember him to be. 
And so of God. Your conception of 
Him may brighten into ecstasy, and 
yet be restrained from running into any 
false or distorted view of Him by the 
control of a sober and rational faith— 
even that faith which rests upon the 
evidence of His word. Now this faith 
and this conception of God are both 
given us by God. In so doing, God 
shows Himself to the soul of man. He 
who commanded the light to-shine out 
of darkness, can shine in our hearts to 
gives the light of the knowledge of 
the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
Christ. 

IT am not fond of using terms which 
might not be readily apprehended by 
men of mere popular understanding, and 
should like to feel as if there was none 
of the obscurity of metaphysics in what 


xi. | 


I say when I té.. yo: of the distinction 
between faith and conception. You are 
conceiving a distinct object when some- 
thing like a sensible representation of 
that object is present to your fancy. 
When that object is an absent friend, 
the conception of him is at times so 
lively that you may have heard people 
say in such a case,“ I think I see him; 
I can figure him in a very lively and 
impressive manner ; his voice, his man- 


ner, his countenance, are all present 


with me.” And if it be a voice which 
you know never speaks of you but with 
tenderness—if it be a manner which ih- 
dicates, throughout all its varieties, a 
steady and unalterable attachment to 
yourself—if it be a countenance that 
never beams upon you but with a look 
of benignity and regard, then it is evi- 
dent that this lively conception will have 
an exhilarating influence upon your 
spirits ; you will have a more powerful 
impression of sensible comfort, in as far 
as it is dependent upon the friendship of 
him who is thus exhibited in a way so 
striking to the eye of your imagination. 
Such a visitation upon your mind as 
this will be a visitation of peace, and 
joy, and affection ; and though this be 
the habitual state of your spirit in regard 
to him you love, and who is at a dis- 
tance from you, yet will those periods 
when the vision of his excellences 
comes in all its bright and fascinating 
array into remembrance be at all tintes 
counted by you as those most precious 
moments of delight when his value 
is most strongly felt, and all the cor- 
diality of his regards is most exquisitely 
rejoiced in. 

Now, my brethren, to give you an 
idea of the distinction between this 
lively conception of him, which, in point 
of vivacity and affection, borders so 
nearly upon a sensible representation, 
and that steady faith by which the real 
existence of this said friend, and all the 
attributes of worth and of kindness 
which belong to him, are the matters 
of your conviction, the former may fluc- 
tuate from one day to another, and from 
one hour to another, while the latter 
rémains absolute and entire at all times, 
and is just as much the object of thor- 
ough belief to-day as it was yesterday, 
or as it will be to-morrow. There may, 


DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 


477 


perhaps, be no one moment in which I 
have the least doubt of his existence, or 
there may be no one moment in which 
I have the least doubt of his character, 
either as it regards its own intrinsic 
merit and its peculiar aspect of tender- 
ness to myself. But with all this unal- 
terable belief, there is one other thing 
which ever alters, and may be in a state 
of constant fluctuation. There are mo- 
ments at which the imagination of my 
friend flits before my inner man in a 
brighter perspective ; there are moments 
in which I have a readier command of 
his every feature and his every peculi- 
arity ; there are moments at which his 
revered person or his smiling aspect of 
benignity will unaccountably rush upon 
my heart, and fill it either with the 
vivid remembrance of former joy or the 
bright anticipations of future intercourse. 
Yes, there are such moments familiar to 
the experience of many a human being, 
and yet they may be succeeded by other 
moments when—though abandoned by 


all this cheering imagery, and left to. 


the dull tenor of their more ordinary 
thoughts—the belief that your friend is, 
and that he has the same worth of char- 
acter and the same warmth of attach- 
ment as ever, remains an unvaried and 
an unshaken element within you. 

And I trust you further perceive how, 
though this conception may bring all 
this home to the eye of your mind in a 
manner more pictorial and impressive 
than the mere belief of it can do, yet it 
by no means necessarily follows that 
your conception outruns your belief. It 
is the office of conception to place your 


friend, according to all the varied attri- 


butes which belong to him, in a brighter 
representation before you, but still it 
may not represent any more than you 
know to be true, and that, as a deliberate 
judgment of.the understanding, you 
think you have good grounds for believ- 
ing to be true. You are furnished with 
the proofs of memory and of past expe- 
rience for believing the reality of all 
that you are conceiving. Conception 
may not add a single feature to its orig- 
inal; it only gives a clearer and more 
impressive view of all the features which 
actually belong to him. It may not 
suggest to you a single idea about him 
which you may not have good reason 


47s 


for believing to be just. It may not 
deal in any of the representations of 
falsehood; while it brightens and sets 
into more forcible display before you 
the representations of truth. 

Now the same is true, my brethren, 
of the invisible beings and doctrines of 
revelation. I may havea steady and 
entire belief in the power of God, and 
yet the conception of that power, as ex- 
patiating over all the elements of the 
moral and material universe, may fill 
and elevate my imagination, and carry 
a greater movement of the sublime 
along with it at one time than another. 
The faith may be invariable, but the 
conception may fluctuate. The same 
is true of His wisdom, and of His good- 


ness, and of His holiness, and of His | 


truth. Even His tender mercy, rejoic- 
ing over all His works—from which I 


am so far from being excluded, that, | 


through the word of the gospel salvation, 
I am invited to share in it—may be be- 
lieved, and work all the essential influ- 
ences of belief on my hopes and my 
feelings. But extreme liveliness of con- 
ception is not one of the essential in- 
fluences of faith. It is very lable to 
fluctuations. The season of its most 
powerful visitation may be a season of 
rapture, and holy joy, and delighted 
communion with God; but such a sea- 
son may pass away, and yet the belief 
which sustained and gave solidity to 
the whole of this process may be as 
stable and permanent as ever. These 
periods of great sensible comfort, and of 
lively communion with God, will be 
esteemed by every Christian as_ the 
brightest and noblest intervals of his 
earthly pilgrimage. But I would have 
you understand that, even after the 
termination of one such interval, there 
may be a strong and surviving faith—ay, 
a faith giving as unequivocal proof of its 
existence and its vigour as at the time of 
its more brilliant and ecstatic operation. 

Now I hold it of importance to the 
rationality and soundness of this whole 
speculation, to observe that what is true 
of the conception not outrunning the 
belief in the case of an earthly friend, 
but merely giving a livelier exhibition 
to the inner man of what was upon 
solid and legitimate grounds already 
believed, holds also true of the objects 


DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS, 


[SERM. 


of faith which are set before us in the 
New Testament. I may have a far 
more exquisite and affecting sense of 
God as my reconciled Father at one 
time than at another, and yet the steady 
faith of His being my reconciled Father 
may never abandon me. But even at 
that time, when my heart is filled and 
delighted with this lively sense of the 
tender mercies of God, I may not be 
conceiving anything,more than what I 
have ground for believing from fair and 
legitimate sources of evidence. All 
that the conception may do is not to 
add to my knowledge of God, or give 
me one other notion respecting Him 
than those I had before; but it may 
brighten and make clearer to my im- 
agination those truths which I had al- 
ready admitted into my creed. Should, 
for example, my conception put any 
other feature upon God than I find ap- 
plied to Him in His own revelation, 
then would it be outrunning a sober 
and well-grounded faith, and well may 
I be branded as a visionary and en- 
thusiastic religionist. But should my 
conception do no more than give me 
a more adequate impression of these 
things respecting God which are clearly 
set down in the declarations of His 
word; should it so fill me with a sense 
of His power as to give a more solem- 
nizing impression of it in my spirit, or 
so fill me with a sense of His goodness 
in Christ as to make me rejoice with a 
joy unspeakable and full of glory; or 
so fill me with a sense of eternity as to 
make me sit lighter than ever to all the 
vexations of time, and give me the 
buoyancy of an animating independ- 
ence on all chances of life and of for- 
tune—why, my brethren, there is noth- 
| ing wild or visionary in all this. There 
is no setting before me of any truth 
not to be found in the record. There 
is only an investing of such truths with 
that force and that colour which give 
them an ascendency over all my feel- 
Ings that is more than ever in propor- 
tion to the vast importance which be-. 
_longstothem. There is nothing, surely, 
here to provoke the contempt of those 
who sneer at what they call the beatific 
visions of Methodism. In such visions 
as these there is not one ingredient ad- 
mitted upon which the word of God 








xu0. | 


does net put the stamp and the sanction 
of credibility. It is a vision, in short, 
made up of the solid materials of faith; 
and, during the whole process of such 
a manifestation, so far from anything 
being told us that is not to be found in 
the Bible, all the manifestation consists 
in this, that by it the Bible or the field 
of revelation becomes arrayed with a 
brighter and a more luminous clearness 
than to our eyes is habitually spread 
over it. 

But there is still another kind of man- 
ifestation. In the first way of it, God 
gives a clearer and a livelier perception 
of Himself to the soul. In the ‘sec- 
ond way of it, which I am now re- 
ferring to, God may work such effects 
im the soul of man as may carry along 
with them the evident marks of His 
special and distinguishing favour. You 
may experience in yourselves a grow- 
ing concern about eternity ; a growing 
sense of your own sinfulness; a grow- 
ing desire after the fulness of Christ; 
a growing dependence upon Him as all 
your salvation; a growing distrust of 
yourselves and joy in the Saviour ; and, 
under the never-failing effect of this 
new attitude of the soul, a growing 
advancement in the virtues of the new 
creature, and a growing conformity to 
the pattern of worth and loveliness set 
before us in the gospel. Now this isa 
work of grace going on in your hearts, 
and it is of God. Others may see it, 
and it may be to them a manifest token 
of the Spirit of the living God. Yet I 
would not say that there was any man- 
ifestation to you in all this, till the 
work of grace become evident to your; 
selves. There are differences in this 
respect. With some the work may be 
going on for years before they see the 
hand of God in it, or construe it into a 
token for good, and they are doomed to 
an awfuland a long-continued sense of 
guilt and abandonment before they can 
say with the apostle, Hereby know we 
that God abideth in us, by the Spirit 
which He hath given us. Others may 
rejoice from the very outset of their 
conversion, and the very first impres- 
siogs of grace may be attended with 
‘such a manifestation of the Spirit as to 
‘make it evident to themselves that the 
good hand of God is upon them. We 


DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 


479 


are not to condemn this joy as prema- 
ture. Paul felt this joy at the very 
beginning of the good work upon the 
souls of his disciples, and he communi- 
cated this joy to them, and so led them 
to share in it, and they could not but 
feel a confidence that it was God who 
was working in them, when their re- 
vered apostle told them that he was 
confident of this very thing, that God, 
who had begun a good work in them, 
would perform it until the day of Jesus 
Christ. It is the sense of God’s agency 
in the matter which makes every new 
advance in the accomplishments of the 
gospel a manifestation of God; and 
when Paul addressed Timothy—both 
of whom were far advanced in ,estab- 
lished Christianity—he did not barely 
say that they had obtained a spirit of 
love, and of power, and of a sound 
mind, but that they had obtained it 
froma God ; for God has not given to us 
the spirit of fear, but of power, and of 
love, and of a sound mind. 

So much for the two kinds of mani- 
festation: one consisting in a clear and 
direct view of God—the other in the 
consciousness of His good work going 
on in our souls). And we may add, 
that the impenitent at times experience 
manifestations of God which are coun- 
terparts to these; that at one time He 
manifests Himself in wrath to their 
consciences ; and that as he looked from 
the pillar of cloud and fire upon the 
Egyptians and troubled them, so the an- 
gry God looketh forth upon the wicked, 
and stands before them in all the maj- 
esty of offended justice. At another time 
He makes them to feel the progress of 
their guilt; how their souls are harden- 
ing and getting seared ; how a desperate 
obstinacy of character is growing upon 
them ; how every step they are taking 
carries them further in alienation from 
God; and thus, even in this world, He 
sends terrors to their hearts, and gleams 
a deep and awful foreboding over their 
infatuated way. 

In my present discourse I confine 
myself to the promised manifestations 
of my text; and there are two sets of 
hearers who need to be instructed upon 
this point. The first are those who can- 
not believe that there is any realit 
in those manifestations, and who thin 


480 


that there is mysticism in the very term. 
These are they who associate all that is 
unreal with all that is invisible; and 
yet God is invisible, and they who live 
in fellowship with God must live in the 
constant enjoyment of a spiritual mani- 
festation. ‘The Spirit is invisible, and 
they who rejoice in the Spirit rejoice in 
that of which they do not know whence it 
cometh or whither it goeth. The varied 
objects of faith are invisible, and they 
who walk by faith, and not by sight, 
live under the power of invisibles. All 
that gives rapture to a triumphant death- 
bed is invisible; and we have the au- 
thority of an apostle for the substance 
and the truth which lie in the joyful ex- 
clamations of a dying Christian.—O ye 
men of the world, who look upon the 
spiritual exercises of the Christian as so 
many shadowy illusions, it is you, and 
not they, who live under the government 
of shadows. You look no further than 
to the figures upon that pictured screen 
which hides God and eternity from the 
eye of your senses; but on that day 
when the earth is burnt up, and the 
heavens pass away as a scroll, this 
screen shall be withdrawn, and the aw- 
ful realities on the other side of it will 
attest that they alone live wisely in the 
world who live by the power of-what is 
unseen and eternal. 

But there is another set of hearers, 
and to them I chiefly address myself: 
those who do believe that there is a re- 
ality in those manifestations, but feel 
how miserably short they are in the ex- 
perience of them—who long for the 
light of God’s countenance, but have 
not yet tasted what it is to enjoy it— 
who know that there is a truth anda 
power in the promise of light and peace, 
and increase in the knowledge and 
fellowship of the Father and of the Son, 
but cannot say that the promise has 
ever been realized upon them—who 
stand ata distance from the joys and 
exercises of the inner man, and are op- 
pressed with a sense of that darkness as 
to spiritual objects which overspreads 
all their perceptions and all their facul- 
ties. I shall, in the first place, attempt 
a rapid description of the state of their 
minds; and I shall, in the second place, 
lay before you the process of my text, 


DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 


| SERM. 


which carries all who describe it to the 


manifestations they long for. 

First, then, as to the state of their 
minds. There is a general dimness 
hanging over all their conceptions of 
those invisible realities with which a 
spiritual man is conversant. They be- 
lieve in God, but they want a lively 
sense and impression of Him. They 
believe in Christ. but they cannot get 
that clear view of Him which they as- 
pire after. They believe that God is 
accessible to all through Him, and this 
belief operates so far that when they ap- 
proach the Father it is in the name of 
the Son, but they do not feel a lively 
confidence even in this way of access to 
God. They may not want faith, but 
they want liveliness of conception, and 
we all know that conception may be- 
come so distinct and so impressive as to 
approach to the nature of vision. Now 
you can all understand that to hear of 
the friendship of a distant acquaintance 
by the hearing of the ear, even though | 
you have full faith in the testimony, has 
not so cheering an influence upon you 
as when you see him beside you, and 
witness with your own eyes an attach- 
ment full of tenderness, and a counte- 
nance full of benignity. And so of 
God. The days are coming when He 
shall tabernacle with men, when the 
pure in heart shall see Him, and shall 
rejoice in His presence. Could we only 
catch a lively conception of God: in 
Christ, we should have a foretaste of 
the coming joy. But many labour un- 
der a dulness of conception, and from 
them God is hiding His countenance. 
They may believe, but they have no joy 
in believing. They lament their dark- 
ness, and are like to give way to gloomy 
forebodings. They lament that while 
all is clearness to the eye of the body, 
all is dimness to the spiritual eye; and 
that, while the living scenery around 
them falls with so distinct an impres- 
sion upon their senses, the God who 
actuates and animates the whole sits 
behind an impenetrable curtain, and 
they cannot apprehend Him. 

Now it may help, on the one hand, to 


quiet their alarms, when they are told 


that they are perhaps aiming at an im- 
possibility, for God is the Being whom 


xu. } 


no man can approach unto; and, on the 
other hand, it may help to assist their 
conceptions, when they are told that 
God’s embodied Son was the brightness 
of His Father’s glory, and the express 
image of His person—that in Him dwelt 
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, 
and that, therefore, when they want a 
lively impression of the loving-kindness 
of God they should think of the kindness 
which fell from the Saviour’s lips, and 
of the love which beamed from His 
countenance. But even this view of 
the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
Christ may be withheld from them. 
They want lofty and distinct concep- 
tions of the Saviour; they have not yet 
obtained the promised manifestations; 
they may have heard Christ speaking 
peace to them in His Word, but they | 
have not seen Him looking peace to 
them with the light of His countenance. 
The effect of all this may be a want 
of sensible comfort. If the perfection 
of saints in heaven is to rejoice in the 
fellowship of God, how can I be prepar- 
ing for this inheritance who have so 
little. of this joy and this fellowship on 
earth? ‘To be made meet for a place 
there, [ should be making progress here 
in the tastes, the capacities, and the 
employments of glorified spirits. Now 
what a gloomy impression it must have 
upon my prospects, when I feel within 
myself that all this is shrouded in dark- 
ness from me—that it inspires me with 
no clear view and no lively emotion; 
and that’ while, like other beings who 
are of the earth, earthy, I can perceive 
well enough, and think truly enough, 
and feel a keen enough interest among 
the visible scenes and objects around 
me, I feel as if I had no discernment of 
the things of the Spirit of God—that 
every effort I make to conceive of them 
is powerless—and that when [ look to- 
ward them, I see them wrapped in some 
deep and awful obscurity which I can- 
not dissipate. ' 
I might acquiesce in this want of 
capacity for spiritual contemplations, if 
I thought it were the necessary or uni- 
versal lot of Christians in the world. and 
that. they were such as eye could not 
see nor ear hear, neither could it enter 
into the heart of man to conceive; but 
when I hear Christians saying, and 


DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS, 


48} 


with authority too, that God hath re- 
vealed them unto us by His Spirit, I 
am led to the conclusion that this is a 
work of the Spirit which I have had 
no share in; and that, while others ex- 
perience the light and the triumph of 
most animating manifestations, [ am 
left to wander a melancholy outcast, 
unblest by the influences of heaven, 
and an utter stranger to the perception 
of its joys. 

It aggravates my fears when I exam- 


‘Ine the other evidences of grace which 


are more at hand. How can I be 
growing in the love of God when I 
have no satisfying view of His counte- 
nance? I may be constitutionally gen- 
erous and upright. but how can I be 
growing in that Christian love of my 
neighbour which is like unto the love 
of God? Where is my strength for the 
performance of duty while all is dark- 
ness around me. and all is languor and 
hopelessness within me? I may have 
much effort, and much thought, and 
much curiosity; but, sunk in this sor- 
row of withdrawment from light and 
from comfort, [ must be running in un- 
certainty, and fighting as one that 
beateth the air; and what with some 
parts of my conduct which I know to 
be sins, and other parts of it which | 
am not sure to be graces, I feel lost and 
bewildered in a path that is unknown 
to me. 

I shall conclude this first head with 
observing, in the first place. that the 
manifestations of my text, if not en- 
joyed, will be much longed after by all 
who have begun to contract a spiritual 
taste; who have begun to feel that 
there is no sufficiency for them in the 
things of this world: who are dying to 
the maiters of sense and of time, and 
are groping their way, though perhaps 
in darkness and bewilderment. after an 
interest and a friendship with God. In 
the language of the psalmist. they say 
with their hearts, » Who will show 
us any good? Lord, lift upon us the 
light of Thy countenance.” As the hart 
panteth after the water-brooks, so thirst 
they after God. If there be no desire 
after these hidden enjoyments of the 
Christian life. I see not how there is 
any love at all to the invisible Father 
of the spirits of all flesh. Sure I am 


482 


that in the matter of earthly friendship 
there is something more aspired after 


than the mere enjoyment of a firm con- | 


fidence in the regards of each other, 


while the parties stand at a wide and) 
There is a longing | 
There is an) 
aptitude for each other's company. 


personal distance. 
for personal intercourse. 


There is a desire to carry forward the 
mere intercourse of mind from the calm- 
ness of a mental conviction in the good- 
will of each other to the vivacity of near 
and sensible society. And as surely, if 
there be a real love to God, will there 


be a delight in communion with Him; | 


and the delight will just be the more 
exquisite that it be carried forward from 
the communion of a mere fixed and 
settled belief to the communion of a 
near and impressive manifestation ; and 
the more your conception of God ap- 


proaches to the intensity of sense, the | 
more will be your delight that He, your | 


friend, is brought so present and so near 
to you; and while the profane laugh at 
all this as an enthusiastic vision, and 
the lukewarm, with their cold and es- 


tablished decencies, are just, in heart | 


and in affection, as far from God as are 
the former, be you assured, my brethren, 
that you will never enjoy heaven herc- 
after if you have no relish for the en- 
joyment of heaven here; and let fellow- 
ship with the Father and with the Son; 
and a clear perception of the character 
of God; and a rejoicing sense of His 
mercy in Christ Jesus; and a bright 
overpowering impression of the grace 
and the majesty of His character ; and, 


in fact, all those near views of Him, | 


DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 





and strong feelings towards Him, and | 
that intimate sense of His presence 
which comes from a close and impress- | 
ive manifestation of God to the soul—_ 


let these, I say, be branded as they 


may with the epithets of extravagance 
and enthusiasm, and as if they marked 


a man who had let go his hold of all the 
ordinary principles of the world. and 
wandered in a region of fanatical illu- 


sion and of mystic reverie—be assured, | 


my brethren, in spite of all this, that 
these are the very delights and exerci- | 


ses of Paradise, and the very enjoy- 


[SERM. 


And, second y—though it should be 
anticipating a ittle what is to come af- 
terwards—I know that in’ many in- 
stances the distinction is not adverted to 
between a real faith in the truths of the 
gospel, and a lively, exhilarating concep- 
tion of them. Now it is by faith that 
ye are saved; and therefore it is that 
there are people who are ever endeavour- — 
ing to work up their feelings toa high 
pitch of peasurable elevation, and are 
constantly striving after sensible com- 
fort, and founding the most melancholy 
conclusions upon their want of it. and 
think that surely, as they have no lively 
manifestation of the truth, they can have 
no belief in it, and are therefore desti- 
tute of the main-spring and the essential 
element of salvation. I trust I have 
said as much as may convince you that 
faith and conception are two different 
things; that while the former is the 
principle on which the salvation of a sin- 
ner hinges, the latter affords to him those 
enjoyments which are most congenial 
to every mind that feels the world to be 
a pilgrimage, and heaven to be its home, 
and the exercises of heaven to be what 
they have a growing taste and a growing 
capacity for. But [ trust that it will be 
made to appear how there are other 
fruits and evidences of faith than the 
clear and lively discernment of the spirit- 
ualities of another world; that in the 
midst of depression there may be a 
strong exercise of faith ; that under the 
hidings of God’s countenance there may 
be a most resolute and inflexible faith; 
that under the operation of languid and 
overborne faculties there may bea steady 
operation of faith ; that, with an utter 
confusion and mistiness of the mind 
about what is unknown, there may be 
a most determinate cleaving of the mind 
to what is known; that, labouring un- 
der the want of manifestation, there 
may at the same time be the having of 
the commandments of Christ, and the 
keeping of them; that previous to the 
accomplishment of the last clause of my 
text, in which our Saviour promises to 
manifest Himself, there may be a pro- 
cess going on with the believer which 
our Saviour will interpret into an evi- 


ments which shed over the eternity of | dence of love for Himself, and for which 
the redeemed all its blessedness and all, He has given the assurance that His 
Father will love him back again, and 


its glory. 


xu. ] 


to encourage him in the path of obedi- 
ence, promises that He will make all his 
darkness to emerge in the light of a 
cheering manifestation. 

I now come to the second head of dis- 
course, under which I shall attempt to 
lay before you the process of my text, 
which all describe who arrive at the 
promised manifestations. 

When fatigued and disappointed by 
the utter fruitlessness of all my exertions, 
is is most important to be told, as I am 


in the text before me, that the light I 


am in quest of is at the giving of the 
Saviour. This is confirmed by another 
passage in the New Testament, where 
it is said that Christ shall give the light. 
One may arrive at a quiescent belief, 
but he will never arrive at clearness or 
vivacity of conception, or even at a right 
belief of the New Testament, by the 
mere steps of an argument. The wis- 
dom of this world may enable me to en- 
roll a truth even of the Bible among the 
articles of my speculative creed; but so 
to impress it upon my heart as to serve 
the purpose of comfort or direction, is 
the work of a higher hand. I now un- 
derstand how truth, as to all its practi- 
‘cal uses, may be hidden from the wise 
and the prudent, and revealed unto 
babes; and when [ return from the 
parade of demonstration, and wait in de- 
pendence and prayer upon Him who is 
the light of the world, 1 see how, unless 
aman be converted and become asa 
little child, he shall not enter into the 
kingdom of Heaven. Meanwhile, I 
learn that so long as I toiled separately 
from Christ, and out of the way which 
He prescribed to us, I was toiling in 
vain—that I must keep by Him as the 
Being who retains in His custody the 
light Tam in quest of—and giving up 
all experiments of my own, [ must just 
adhere, and that most scrupulously, to 
the line which He has chosen to lay 
down for me. 

Be assured, my brethren, that if the 
saving faith of the New Testament be 
not of ourselves, but the gift of God, no 
effort of ours which does not recognize 
the sovereignty of God in this matter, 
will @ver conduct us to this faith, make 
the effort as strenuously as you like. 
Bring to it all the powers of a most ar- 
gumentative and penetrating under- 


“-?— 
DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 








483 


standing—betake yourselves to every 
such expedient for working within you 
a belief of the truths of the Christian 
revelation, as you make use of in work- 
ing within you a belief of the truths of 
political economy, or of the physical and 
mathematical sciences—there may be 
some result, [ grant you, from such an 
intellectual exercise; your objections 
may be silenced, and your judgment be 
subdued out of ‘all its resistance to the 
truth, and your active hostility against 
it be disarmed, and the mind be brought 
into the posture of resting in the conclu- 
sion that Christianity is an authentic 
religion from heaven. And yet, my 
brethren, the faith which you think to 
be in you may, in fact, not be the saving 
faith of the gospel at all. When I read 
that gospel, [ see fruits and influences 
assigned to faith which, in many thou- 
sand instances of speculative acquies- 
cence, I cannot perceive to be realized 
on the heart or on the life of those who 
profess it. The faith of the gospel isa 
something different from this, for it is a 
something which comes out of a new 
heart—it is a something which works 
by love—it is a something which over- 
cometh the world—it is a something 
which brings affection and practice, and 
a new aim, and a holy walk, and conso- 
lation along with it. That faith about, 
the matters of Christianity which the 
power of argument hath wrought, and 
wrought just in the same way that it 
works a faith in the matters of philoso- 
phy, is positively a something belonging 
to another class of principles altogether 
from the faith which availeth; and we 
are, therefore, not to wonder that it 
should differ from the other in the steps 
by which it is brought into existence— 
that there should be a peculiarity about 
the way in which it originates—that 
the mere operation of these expedients, 
which will suffice for the production of 
the former, should be altogether inade- 
quate to the production of the latter; 
and it is under the power of these con- 
siderations—under the positive experi 
ence of the insufficiency of bare argu- 
ment—under a feeling that a naked in- 
tellectual acquiescence in the truth may 
be utterly fruitless, and have not one 
particle of the life and influence of the 
great gospel principle. belonging to it, 


484 


that I count it a saying worthy of all 


acceptation, that faith is not of our-. 


selves—that it is wrought in us with 
power—that it is the gift of God. 

Now it is very true that God may be 
said to manifest Himself in the act of 
giving faith, and, further, to manifest 
Himself in the act of increasing the 
faith that we have already received. 
But, referring to what has been already 
said about the distinction between faith 
and conception, I do not think that in- 
variably the one or the other of these 
forms all the manifestations of my text. 
I can figure to myself a dulness of con- 
ception when there is no abatement of 
the principle of faith, and the liveliness 
of conception with no additional vigour 
given to that principle. The truths of 
the gospel may be brought more clearly 
and more strikingly home to the discern- 
ment of the mind at one time than at 
another; and if these truths relate to 
the character of God, or of Jesus Christ 
whom He hath sent, they may appear 
to the eye of the understanding more 
brightly than before in the features of 
truth, or holiness, or kindness, or long- 
suffering. In these cases the soul is 
enjoying a clearer manifestation of the 
Father or of the Son—is exercising a 
closer fellowship with them—is recelv- 
ing through the medium of its mental 
perceptions a foretaste of those pure and 
affectionate transports which will be 
perfected in heaven when the Divinity 
shall reveal Himself in all the glories 
of an immediate presence to His wor- 
shippers—when all those features of 
grace and of majesty which belong to 
fim shall be placed before them in vis- 
ible and direct contemplation, and they 
shall reap through all the ages of a se- 
cure and rejoicing eternity the reward 
of the pure in heart—they shall see 
God. The glass which now intercepts 
from the eye of the mind the realities 
of the future world is so dim that we 
see them but darkly, and no power or 
exertion of our own can brighten or im- 
prove its transparency. But what we 
cannot do for ourselves Christ can do 
for us. He expressly claims for Him- 
self in the text the sovereignty and the 
contro] in the work of those manifesta- 
tions. He says, I will manifest myself; 
and, in so doing, He gives an important 


DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 


[SERM. 


practical direction to the man who seeks 
and is in earnest after the light which 
he does not yet enjoy. He tells him 
what surely it is of the utmost impor- 
tance for him to know, and what may 
have an essential influence in guiding 
him to the manifestations which he as- 
pires after. He tells him that his own 
native and unassisted powers will never 
lead him to the accomplishment of his 
object. He gives him to understand 
that the manifestations he is in quest of 
are in the hand of Jesus Christ; and 
if there be any difference in point of ef- 
fect between the result of the process 
carried on without any reference to Him 
who alone can give to that process all 
its efficacy, and the result of a process 
carried on in obedience to Him with 
whom the efficacious influence is depos- 
ited, the informations of the text point 
the way by which this difference may 
be realized. 

We already, then, know as much as 
should serve to lighten the dark and 
melancholy inguirer of some of his anx- 
ieties. Hitherto he has missed his ob- 
ject; but perhaps the reason of this is 
that he was out of the way to it. From 
the moment that this is suggested, a 
prospect of relief begins to dawn upon 
him, and the prospect is inconceivably 
brightened, when-an infallible guide 
comes forward with the offer of his di- 
rection and his services. It is well 
that he is casting about for light, for 
this proves him to be awakened; and to 
cheer and sustain him before he enters 
upon the way to it, let me whisper one 
of the never-failing promises into his 
ear: Awake, O sinner, and Christ shall 
give thee light. 

First, then, it appears from the text, 
and averse a little below, that the man- 
ifestations promised by the Saviour are 
given to those who love the Saviour. 
The text I have already set before you ; 
the other verse is an answer to a ques- 
tion respecting these manifestations: 
“Tf a man love me, he will keep my 
words; and my Father will love him, 
and we will come unto him, and make 
our abode with him.” 

This may throw the dark and bewil- 
dered Christian at as great a distance 
from his object asever. He replies, “ O, 
but Ido not love Him; and when I try 


xin. ] 
I find that [I cannot love Him.” The 
truth is, that he cannot summon up 
Jesus Christ as a lovely and engaging 
object to the eye of his mind. He has 
not yet arrived at such manifestations, 
and his poor faculties cannot clothe the 
Saviour in the vivid colours of reality ; 
he cannot form Him into a picture on 
which his fancy may rest and be grati- 
fied. Thisishisaim; but Jesus Christ 
chooses to humble him into a conviction 
of his vanity ; He checks his adventur- 
ous flight into the region of invisibles. 
The man was daring enough to carry 
his creative imagination into the other 
world ; but he found no rest to the sole 
of his foot, and, baffled in the enterprise, 
he falls from it in despair. Why, he is 
precipitating the business. To use a 
homely phrase—and let us not disdain 
to press any phrase into the service of 
illustrating a subject so deeply interest- 
ing to all of us—he is cutting before the 
point. The manifestations which he 
must be content to wait for, and to work 
for in the prescribed way, he attempts 
to form by the creative energy of his 
own talents. Christ will give him light 
if he do as he is bid ; -but this high at- 
tribute of commanding the light to shine 
out of darkness he must not arrogate to 
himself. Now this is what he is doing 
when he sets up his own arbitrary test 
of love to the Saviour ; and no wonder 
if, upon the application of this test to 
the state of his own heart, he is heard 
to exclaim, “I cannot love Him ;” but 
give up your own test, and take to the 
test which your Saviour lays down for 
you. It is a familiar and a practicable 
test, and is well calculated to check the 
aerial fancy which has hitherto occu- 
pied and misled you. ‘ He who hath 
my commandments, who hath received 
them,,and knowing them to be mine, 
keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.” 
Let us go, then, to the command- 
ments; and though we lost ourselves 
in the unauthorized exercises of fancy, 
we shall not be so apt to lose ourselves 
in the obviousness of a prescribed task. 
We shall there find a plain and intelli- 
gible way to the thing we are in quest 
of; and Christ, at His good time, will 
give us these manifestations which it is 
our duty patiently to wait for, if we 


DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 


485 


firmly persevere in the course that leads 
to them. 

But let us descend to particulars—let 
us take up the very first commandment 
of this chapter, “ Ye believe in God, be- 
lieve also in me.” Some may think 
that we have not yet succeeded in clear- 
ing away the darkness; for, under the 
remaining influence of the error which 
I have been attempting to expose, they 
may think that to believe in Christ, 
Christ should stand revealed to the eye 
of their mind in all the impressiveness 
of a specific form. But what! is it nec- 
essary to have a bright and special con- 
ception of a being before we can put 
faith in the word of his testimony? No, 
itis not. There are thousands who be- 
lieve in Christ, and would stake all they 
hold dear in the world upon the truth 
of his declarations, and yet are utter 
strangers to any bright or exhilarating 
view of the Saviour. I will not vouch 
for their sensible comfort; but, upon 
the strength of the saying, that he 
who believeth shall enter into life, L 
vouch for their safety. The time is 
coming, I promise them, when their 
hearts shall be blest by lively and en- 
dearing images of Christ; but in the 
mean time I call upon them, though 
they cannot bring their conceptions to 
a distinct view of the Saviour, to keep 
their convictions steady and unshaken 
in the faith of Him. Hold by this as 
the anchor of your soul, that what He 
hath said is true; and like those who 
against hope believed in hope, your faith 
will prove itself a firmer principle by 
maintaining its vigour even in that sea- 
son of darkness when the other powers 
and exercises of the mind refuse to go 
along with it—when cheerfulness has 
fled, when sight gives you not an object 
to rest upon, and conception labours in 
vain after images of joy. Why, my 
brethren, in pity and accommodation to 
the weaknesses of our feeble nature, 
(rod promises life to them not who con- 
ceive brightly, or who imagine vividly, 
of the Saviour, but to those who believe 
in His name. He leaves us not to wan- 
der among the uncertainties of fancy, 
but he gives us a familiar and palpable 
name on which to rest our confidence. 
I may not be able to summon up an 


486 


image of the Saviour, but I can at all 
times lay hold of His name; and unto 
the invisible Being who bears it I will 
ascribe all the power, and truth, and 
kindness which I find ascribed to Him 
in the New Testament. I will cleave 
to the saying, ‘“ Whatsoever ye shall ask 
in my name, that will I do.” On this 
I shall rest my salvation, for I shall 
cease not to pray for it in the name of 
Christ. On this I shall rest my hope 
of the promised manifestations, for in 
the name of Christ I will put up my 
prayers for them. On this I shall rest 
my security for keeping all his com- 
mandments, for { will go to Him, or, 
at least I will make mention of His 
name, when [ implore the will and the 
power of doing all things through Him 
strengthening me. 

Thus furnished, I pass on to the other 
commandments ; and while some, at the 
very outset of their Christianity, ramble 
in pursuit of frames, and raptures, and 
manifestations, let me take the humble 
but obvious path of duty which my Sa- 
viour lays before me. Thus would I re- 
lieve myself of the pains of uncertainty ; 
and, instead of walking on unknown 
ground, with no other light to direct me 
than the sparks of my own kindling, I 
go to the plain way of our Saviour’s 
commandments, and rejoice to think 
that, while performing the very least of 
them, I am taking the very nearest road 
to the light which I aspire after. Kind 
and merciful provision! I would be 
overwhelmed in the darkness of the 
higher exercises, if I were called upon 
at this moment to prove a rapture which 
I do not feel, and to rejoice in a fellow- 
ship with the Father and the Son which 
IT am not sure that I have ever experi- 
enced. There is a veil between me 
and those higher exercises, and to pene- 
trate beyond this veil, there must come 
down upon me from above the light of 
a clearer manifestation than I have yet 
gotten. I do not deny the truth of these 
manifestations. How could I, in the 
face of my text, and in the face of sober 
and declared experience from the mouth 
of many thousands of Christians? No, 
I do not deny them; I long to realize 
them. But, O merciful provision to the 
babes in Christ Jesus! to reach this 
ground, which is still dark to them, 


DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS, 


[SERM. 


there is a path set before them which 
wayfaring men, though fools, may walk 
in. Jesus Christ has poured the clear- 
est light over the every-day path of 
duty, and has given the solemn author- 
ity of a requirement from Him to His 
lessons and His laws. The higher ex- 
ercises may be to me incomprehensible ; 
but surely there is nothing incompre- 
hensible in the exercise of kindness 
among the needy, in the exercise of pa- 
tience among the irksome, in the exer- 
cise of forgiveness among the injurious. . 
I must wait until I obtain light and 
capacity for the one; but in the mean 
time, let me firmly attach myself to the 
other. On the ground of obvious and 
plainly revealed duty, let me make a 
straight path for my feet; let me re- 
joice that I have found something which 
I clearly and certainly know to be the 
will of my Saviour concerning me; and 
strengthened by that Spirit which, in 
simple dependence upon the promise, I 
have only to pray for, let me yield a 
willing performance, and keep by the 
commandments. The Saviour is not 
blind to what is going on in me. He 
sees it; and, O encouraging promise to 
a dark, and forlorn, and alienated crea- 
ture, he accepts it as the evidence of 
love. In His good time He will send 
help from the sanctuary; He will give 
light and manifestation to my soul. As 
yet I may enjoy it not; but I shall 
wait for it, and in so doing, I am only 
keeping another of the commandments. 
“Wait upon the Lord;” let me fear the 
Lord; let me obey the voice of His ser- 
vant; and even though [ walk in dark- 
ness and have no light, let me trust in 
the name of the Lord, and stay upon 
my God. Itisa good thing quietly to 
wait for the promised deliverance.* __ 
I am sensible that this is reversing 
the process which many attempt, and 
which many fail in. . Why, at the very 
commencement of their course they get 
out of sight from all their acquaint- 
ances; they can talk of their joys and 
their experiences, while, by their habit- 
ual neglect of the plainer duties, they 
disgrace the good cause in the eyes of 
those who are without, and prove te 
them who are within that they are 


* Tsaiab 1. 10; Lament. iii. 26. 


xIv.] 


walking in sparks of their own kind- 
ling. Such shall lie down in sorrow. 
- But do you, my brethren, keep by the 
process of my text. Give your earnest- 
ness to the every-day duties of the gos- 
pel and force the testimony of the world 
y your display of its virtues and its 
accomplishments. The men of the world 
laugh at the experiences of the advanced 
and cultivated Christian ; but do you 
put them to silence by a firm and con- 
sistent exhibition of whatsoever things 
are pure, or lovely, or honest, or of good 
report. Then in time you will realize 
the description of the-apostle, “ As un- 
known, and yet well known.” Be well 
known in the world for your integrity, 
for your honour, for your humanity, for 
ihe active and disinterested benevo- 
ence, for all that the world, dark and 
undiscerning as it is, knows how to 
applaud and how to sympathize with. 
But in respect to the life that is hid 
with Christ in God; in respect to the 
manifestations of my text; in respect 
to fellowship with the Father and Son ; 
in respect to their taking up an abode 
with you by the Spirit, and those bod- 
ies of yours becoming the temples of the 
Holy Ghost; why, in respect of all 
these, you must lay your account with 
being utterly unknown. This they do 
not understand, for they do not expe- 
rience it, and the Saviour manifests 
Himself to you in such a way as he 
does not unto the world. 

Oh that what I have said could be 
converted into a lesson of patience or 


DEFENCE OF RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. 


487. 


of comfort with any melancholy Chris- 
tian who may now hear me! ‘To divert 
his melancholy, I give him something 
to do, and refer him for his daily task 
to those duties of the New Testament 
which are of daily and hourly recur- 
rence. This is the way revealed in 
my text for conducting you to the mani- 
festations you long after. Weeks, and 
months, and years may elapse before 
they arrive; but believe and persevere, 
for this is the faith and patience of the 
saints. There may at this moment be 
a dark screen between you and the 
cheering light of our Saviour’s manifes- 
tations ; but surely there is no such 
screen over the lessons of your daily 
walk; the duties of mutual love and 
mutual forbearance; the prayer for 
grace and light in our Saviour’s name ; 
and the faith, however faint its impres- 
sions on your comforts may be, that 
God is waiting to be gracious, and the 
time of your deliverance is coming. 
Hold fast by what you do see, and God 
in His good time will reveal what you 
do not see. Hold fast by known duties, 
and you will come to experience what 
are yet unknown and unfelt privileges. 
God will do for you exceeding abund- 
antly beyond what you have now the 
power either of thinking or of asking 
for. He will throw a radiance over 
your heavenly contemplations ; and the 
Spirit of God will witness with your 
own spirit that you are indeed His 
children. 


SERMON XIV. 


Defence of Religious Enthusiasm.* 


‘¢ But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and sober- 


ness.” —AcTs xxvi. 25. 


Ir might be difficult to give a defini- 
tion of madness ; but it is not so difficult 
to understand the circumstances which 
often dispose a neighbourhood to fasten 
the imputation of madness on any indi- 
vidual. It strikes me that the leading 





* Preached at Kilmany, 3d April, 1814. At Cupar, 
19th February, 1815. At Glasgow, 13th August, 1815. 


circumstance which gives rise to such 
an imputation is a great devotion of 
mind on the part of the individual to 
some one theme or subject which his 
acquaintances around him do not un- 
derstand and do not sympathize with. 
They cannot enter into his tastes or 
feelings or pursuits, and therefore they 


488 


call him unreasonable; and, if he give 
his whole mind to the subject, they call 
him mad. He has suffered some un- 
accountable topic to run away with 
him ; and because it is a topic which 
has no attraction for them, they pro- 
nounce the man who is so run away 
with to be under the influence of de- 
rangement. We doubt not that a soli- 
tary star-gazer in some remote or High- 
land valley, where astronomy was never 
heard of, would fall under this impu- 
tation, and all his apparatus of books 
and telescopes would only serve to con- 
firmit. It is true that now-a-days such 
a valley is scarcely to be met with; 
astronomers are admitted to all the 
credit of rationality ; but this would not 
have happened had there been only one 
astronomer in the world. They have 
appeared in sufficient number to estab- 
lish themselves, and the certainty of 
those practical results which all may 
appreciate, gives a credit to those ab- 
stract and difficult speculations. of which 
a few only are capable. Still, however, 
there are some obscure and _ illiterate 
districts where the honours of astronomy 
are unknown, or where only a few are 
enlightened enough to acknowledge 
them; and should one of these few 
give himself devotedly to the science, 
he would share the fate of the minstrel : 
“Some might call him wondrous wise, 
but some pronounce him mad.” 

Now, my brethren, I appeal to you 
from this judgment, and ask if in point 
of truth, you think it a fair one? Is not 
the charge of madness fastened upon the 
individual in question just because he is 
wiser, and abler, and higher in the scale 
of intellectual dignity than the people 
around him? Do not you see that if 
the estimate were to be formed on the 
mere strength of votes and of numbers, 
it might be adelusive one? Should not 
the question of his madness be tried 
upon its own principles ! and were it so 
tried, would it not be clear as day that, 
while he was standing on a respectable 
elevation, the little world of his acquaint- 
ances were groveling in all the bigotry 
of ignorance? And would not this have 
been equally true, though in the great 
world there had only been one astrono- 
mer? All the world might have thought 
him mad, but all the world would have 


DEFENCE OF RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM 


[SERM. 


been wrong; and his memory would 
have been handed down with ridicule 
only because in the high attributes of 
genius and contemplation he stood the 
greatest and most distinguished of the 
species. 
A man may carry in his mind an en- 
tire devotedness to astronomy, and a 
man may carry in his mind an entire 
devotedness to religion, and in both 
cases there may be a circle of observers 
who refuse to sympathize and go along 
with him. It is true that religion is 
uot purely an intellectual subject—its | 
peculiarities are not confined to matters 
of speculation—they extend to the con- 
duct, and may be exemplified by men 
of the humblest talents and lowest 
walls in society. Still, however, where 
there is a want of sympathy there will 
be a disposition to ridicule—a disposi- 
tion to give names and to throw out 
imputations, and to fasten the charges 
of madness and melancholy and Metho- 
dism on the man who is altogether a 
Christian. It is not to be wondered at 
that such an imputation should be pre- 
ferred against him who is a Christian in 
the full extent and significancy of the 
term, for the very prineiple which lies at 
the bottom of the imputation, and serves 
to explain it, is expressly asserted in the 
New Testament. This principle is nei- 
ther more nor less than a want of sym- 
pathy and common understanding be- 
tween the men of vital Christianity and 
the men of the world. “ Ye are not of 
the world,” says our Saviour, “therefore 
the world hated you.” The children of 
this world are spoken of as a totally dif 
ferent order of beings from the children 
of light. Christians are called upon not 
to be conformed to the world, but to be 
conformed to something else, which we 
may be sure was very different from the 
world. The wisdom of this world is 
said to be foolishness with God, and 
with those therefore to whom the Sa- 
viour hath given power to become the 
children of God. And, finally, such is 
the want of understanding betwixt 
Christians and the men of the world, that 
John says of himself and his fellow-dis- 
ciples, “The world knoweth us not ;” 
“marvel not if the world hate you.” 
Here, then, we behold Christians 
placed in those very circumstances 


xiv. ] 


where they are exposed to the full opera- 
tion of the principle which I have been 
illustrating. If Christians indeed, they 
will with their whole mind serve the 
Lord Jesus, and give their whole heart 
to a business in which the world cannot 
sympathize with them. This direction 
of all their faculties to what to the world 
at large is an unknown and unaccount- 
able object, is the very thing which will 
bring down the full cry of ridicule upon 
them. It throws them at a distance 
from the tastes and enjoyments of ordi- 
nary men. It makes the Christians of 
the present day what Christians were in 
the times of the apostles—a peculiar 
people. It is this peculiarity which 
holds them up to the mockeries of the 
world. They are outnumbered, and the 
loudest laugh must rise from the multi- 
tude on the broad way. In the game 
of ridicule, indeed, they will have it all 
to themselves, for Christians are not dis- 
posed to laugh, but to pity. Their only 
weapons are the still small voice of per- 
suasion, and the mildness of an affec- 
tionate behaviour. But all this will not 
save them from being laughed at; and 
if we hear of the oddities of the solitary 
‘and abstruse and devoted astronomer, 
we are sure to hear also of the oddities 
of the entire and devoted Christian. 

It is true, that if all or even the ma- 
jority were decided Christians, they 
would present such a countenance to 
the world as to silence the voice of ridi- 
cule. Christianity would cease to be 
that peculiar thing which provokes men 
to laugh at it. Go to a Moravian vil- 
lage, and you meet not with a few 
Christian individuals, but with a Chris- 
tian society, where the virtues of the 
gospel are exemplified in all their prim1- 
tive simplicity and fulness—where ev- 
ery day of the week wears a Sabbath 
complexion, and every sentence that falls 
from them is tinctured with the phrase- 
ology of the New ‘Testament—where 
such a faith as theologians only describe 
animates every heart, and such a cha- 
rity as poets only dream of is realized in 
the practice of every individual—where 
all live not to themselves, but to the Re- 
deemer who died for them—where ey- 
ery other business is made subservient 
to the business of piety—where this ap- 
pears to be the main concern, whether 

62 


DEFENCE OF RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. 


489 


at work among their families, or in those 
assemblies of love, where music falls in 
the gracious strains of sacredness and 
peace upon the ear of the wandering 
traveller. Holy men! you have indeed 
chosen the better part, and have with- 
drawn to the quietness of your own vil- 
lages from a world that is not worthy 
of you! Had you mingled with us, 
your good would have been called evil— 
nor would all the mildness of your vir- 
tues have saved you from the persecu- 
tion of our contempt. The imputations 
of madness and Methodism would have 
been lifted up against you, and the 
world’s dread laugh would have been 
sure have followed the men who give 
up all for eternity. 

Now, I have to put the same question 
to you as before—Is this judgment a 
fair one? Should not the question be 
tried upon its own merits? or are we to 
suffer the mere strength of numbers to 
carry it? Does it follow that we are 
wrong, because the weight of numbers 
is against us? Why, the weight of 
numbers is against Christianity in its 
present form—that is, against the Chris- 
tianity of the New Testament; but we 
should think of the many who crowd 
the way to destruction, and the few who 
find the way to eternal life—we should 
think of the little flock, on the one hand, 
and the world lying in wickedness on 
the other—we should think of the very 
thing which is highly esteemed among 
men being abomination in the sight of 
God, and the wisdom of God being in 
them that perish foolishness—these, and 
other truths resting on the same solemn 
authority, we should think of, before we 
give way to the clamorous contempt of 
the multitude, or suffer the ridicule of 
the majority to overbear us. 

The term expressive of contempt va- 
ries with the age and country. Paul 
was called mad in the judgment-hall of 
Cesarea. A man with the devotedness 
of Paul would in the court of Charles 
If. have been called a Puritan—in a 
conclave of high churchmen he would 
be called a Methodist—in our tasteful 
and literary circles he would be called a 
fanatic—in a party of ecclesiastics where 
coldness passes for rationality, he would 
be called an enthusiast—and in private 
life, where secularity and indifference 


490 


form the tame and unceviating features 
of almost every company, he would, if 
altogether a Christian, be spoken of as 
a man whose wrong-headed peculiari- 
ties rendered hima very odd and unnat- 
ural exception to the general character 
of the species. 

In the prosecution of this discourse I 
shall attempt to reduce what is com- 
monly laughed at as enthusiasm into its 
leading ingredients, and to prove that 
the men who possess such enthusiasm 
as this are not mad, but that their words 
and their ways are truth and soberness. 

The first ingredient is a deep sense of 
eternity in the heart—leading him who 
has it to live by the powers of a world 
to come. We have here both a prin- 
ciple and a conduct—such a principle 
as receives no countenance from this 
world’s sympathy, and such a conduct 
as ‘receives no countenance from this 
world’s example. They both serve to 
mark a peculiar character—to remove 
him to a distance from the feelings and 
pursuits of other men—to throw him 
out of the range of their sympathy. An 
air of peculiarity is, to the undiscerning 
eye of the world, an air of folly and ex- 
travagance. It provokes ridicule—it 
brings down epithets of contempt—it is 
construed into some perverse and unac- 
countable direction of the understand- 
ing. The light and the frivolous laugh, 
and your cold, rational judicious men 
wonder at this devotedness of mind to 
an object which they cannot go along 
with. The man who walks by faith, 
and not by sight, is altogether out of 
their element, and they cannot breathe 
with comfort in his. There is a barrier 
betwixt them, and till the mighty Spirit 
eall them out of darkness into light, and 
open their eyes, which are now blinded 
by the god of this world, the barrier is 
impassable. The man whose main con- 
cern is eternity is at antipodes with the 
general run of people in the world. Go 
at random into any company, and tell 
me what else is talked of than the pri- 
ces, and the news, and the entertain- 
ments of the day which passes over 
them. Every topic is temporal; and 
surely, surely if out of the abundance 
of the heart the mouth speaketh, every 
desire, every feeling, every affection is 
towards what is temporal. Will not the 


DEFENCE OF RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. 





[SERM, 


man who has his conversation in hea: 
ven—will not the man who rejoices in 
hope of the coming glory—will not the 
man who labours for the meat that en- 
dureth unto everlasting life—will not 
the man who is diligent to be found 
without spot and blameless on that 
mighty and decisive day which is to 
usher in the march of eternity—will not 
such a man be an exception anda rarity 
among the secular companies of the 
world? Yes, he will; and the only 
way to escape their derision would be to 
confine the elevation of his principles to 
the silence and the solitude of his own 
bosom. If he dares to whisper them, 
he is disgraced and stared at, or the loud 
laugh of all his acquaintances is ready 
to overwhelm him. 

But surely, surely it is he, and not 
they, who is on the side of truth and 
soberness. Were I asked what is that 
which mainly distinguishes wisdom 
from folly, I would say that it is the 
power and the habit of anticipation. 
An infant has no anticipation. It is 
the creature of present appearances. It 
rambles with a delighted eye from one 
object to another; and if its amuse- 
ment be wrested from it for a single 
instant it abandons itself to despair, nor 
does the prospect of what is to come 
round again the next minute offer any 
alleviation to its simple and unreflect- 
ing bosom. The infant rises to a school- 
boy, and the power of anticipation is 
formed in him. He can look forward 
to the joys of the next holiday—they 
soothe the irksomeness of his confine- 
ment—they make him faithful to his 
task, and prove that he can gather 
something from futurity to guide and 
to encourage him. At the end of his 
boyhood I see a further stretch of an- 
ticipation. He verges toward the grave 
and serious and calculating man. He 
looks thoughtful. and can talk of his 
wishes and his plans beyond the period 
of his apprenticeship. The stream of 
years carries him on to confirmed man- 
hood, and gives the last finish to his 
range of temporal anticipation. He 
can now take a farther look into futu- 
rity—he ‘can think of that competency 
which is to be the fruit of his accumu- 
lations, and that retirement which is to 
dignify the evening of his days—he 





xiv. | 


can look forward to the settlement of 
those children who are now frolicking 
in infancy around him; and the light 
pleyfulness of their hearts, joying in 
the present, and caring for nothing be- 
yond it. is in striking contrast with the 
state of heart in the parent, brooding 
in serious calculation over the plans of 
a distant futurity. He hath become a 
man, and put away childish things, and 
you look upon the change as respecta- 
ble and manly; but tell me, my breth- 
ren, upon what mysterious principle it 
is, that if the same anticipation shall 
extend its flight a little way further. 
and pierce beyond the curtain of the 
_ grave, it loses in the sight of the major- 
ity of this world allits honour, and the 
terms of fanaticism and folly are em- 
ployed to cover it with disgrace? An- 
ticipation is the very feature of the mind 
which distinguishes wisdom from folly, 
which distinguishes manhood from in- 
fancy. It is that feature the want of 
which is idiotism, and the presence of 
which is sense and understanding ; and 
that man is the wisest of the wise who, 
in the calculations of trade, or politics. 
or war, can weigh the most distant con- 
sequences, and who from the eminence 
of his superior discernment can com- 
mand the farthest view into that re- 
gion of futurity which lies before him. 
Surely, on this very principle the man 
still wiser than he is the Methodist or 
the Moravian, whom you despise ;—he 
who can renounce the world for eternity 
—he who can sacrifice the present en- 
joyment for the distant advantage of a 
place in heaven—he who, while death 
acts as a barrier to the plans and the 
prospects of worldly men, can carry his 
anticipation beyond it. and make it his 
business to lay up for immortality. You 
admire the far-sighted sagacity of wise 
and reflecting men. The man who is 
altogether a Christian sees farther than 
any of them. He shoots ahead of them 
all—he stands on a higher eminence, 
and a mightier range of prospect is 
submitted to him. Is this the man 
whom you call mad, and whom your 
sober and secular and business men 
wonder at for his enthusiasm? Yes, 
it is very true there is a difference in 
their objects;—they labour for the 
meat that perisheth—he looks beyond 


DEFENCE OF RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. 








491 


the grave, and shapes his measures by 
what he knows of the country on the 
other side of it. Time will show on 
which side the madness lies; she will 
carry us forward to our death-beds. and 
then she will arbitrate the question 
Yes! you men of the world, who were 
so wise in your generation, you perhaps 
gained the objects you were aiming at 
—but where are they now? They are 
all over and gone, and you look back 
upon them as the frivolities of an idiot 
dream. Look at the children of light ; 
they only can die in peace, for their 
futurity is richly provided for, and the 
way which leads to such a provision is 
surely a way of truth and soberness. 
The next ingredient of that madness 
with which Paul, and every Christian 
like Paul, is liable to be charged, is a 
deep sense of God leading him who has 
it to do all things to His glory. You 
will all admit the singularity of such a 
character, and the transition is not very 
far in this world’s estimate from what 
is singlar to what is odd. and from what 
is odd to what is ridiculous. © Strange, 
that an entire dedication of man to his 
Maker should brmg down upon him 
epithets of contempt! But so it is. 
The very term in the English language 
most expressive of devotedness to God, 
has become in the mouth of many an 
epithet of disgrace. That term*is god- 
liness ; and it must be familiar to some 
who now hear me, that to say of a man, 
“he is one of the godly,” is the most 


| effectual way of tricking him out to the 


laughter of his acquaintances. How 
are we to account for that fear which 
many labour under of being detected in 
the attitude of prayer? Is it not be- 
cause prayer is the object of ridicule? 
The sound of an approaching footstep 
raises many a Christian from his knees, 
and the presence of a worldly visitor 
forces many a parent to suspend the 
worship of God in his family. ‘To pass 
from no family worship at all to the ob- 
servance of it once a day—or to pass 
from the observance of it once a day to 
a morning and an evening sacrifice— 
would be put down by many as an ap- 
proach to the extravagance of Method- 
ism. ‘The voice of psalms heard from 
the house of a man who had just begun 


to signalize himself by his religion, 


492 DEFENCE OF RE 
would provoke the merriment of many 
of his townsmen. I bring forward all 
this, because the most effectual method 
of establishing a position is to rest upon 
facts; and they go to prove that a prin- 
ciple the most fitted to dignify human 
beings is held by human beings in dis- 
grace—that the praise of his fellow-men 
is often withheld from him who seeks the 
friendship of his God; and, strange to 
tell, that by the voice of many a society, 
he is the most degraded who most close- 
ly and most frequently approaches to 
the Monarch of the Universe! 

But devotedness to God is a principle, 
and prayer is only one of the expres- 
sions of it. If the principle exist, it 
will not confine itself to this one expres- 
sion. With the perfect man, it will give 
direction to every step of his conduct, 
and throw a colour and an aspect of 
sacredness over the whole of his history. 
With this principle in his heart, let 
him go into a company, and if, in obe- 
dience to the will of God, he tries to 
minister that which is to the use of edi- 
fying, is there no danger of his being 
rated as an enthusiast? With this 
principle let him go to a market, and 
if in that scene where dexterity 1s ap- 
plauded, and a thousand convenient 
falsehoods are uttered without remorse, 
and listened to without indignation, he 
tries to*acquit himself with simplicity 
and godly sincerity, is there no danger 
of his being laughed at as a simpleton ? 
With this principle let him go to Par- 
liament, and however pure the benevo- 
lence or splendid the patriotism of what 
he pleads for, is there no danger of his 
being branded as a saint or a hypocrite ? 
With this principle let him stay at 
home, and preside over the arrangements 
of his family; and if in brmging them 
up to the Lord he dares to be unfash- 
ionable, will there be no contempt for 
the father and no pity for the children 
as the victims of a weak and fanciful 
scrupulosity ; and in the very spirit of 
Festus when addressing Paul, will there 
not be many of his neighbours ready to 
pronounce him a madman ? 

Go not beyond the average Christian- 
ity of the world, and you escape all this. 
But if it be true, as the Bible says, that 
the world lieth in wickedness, must not 
every man who fears his God and keeps 


LIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. 


EEE - OO 8OOvwmw_10'C OC 


[SERM. 


His commandments, go beyond the 
average of such a world? He must 
either signalize himself, or he must 
share in the general condemnation ; and 
I fear that he takes up with a ‘very 
meagre Christianity indeed who only 
admits so much of it as will allow him 
to pass among his acquaintances with- 
out ridicule and without observation. 
But let us not give way to the clamours 
of the majority. Let us treat this ques- 
tion as we would like to do every other; 
let us treat it rationally, and try, upon 
its own principles, on which side the 
madness hes, and on which the truth 
and the soberness. God is invisible ; 
nor will He cease to be so till the com- 
mencement of that era in the history of 
His administration when He shall taber- 
nacle with men. But He has not left 
Himself without a witness; and sure L 
am that the vast majority of my hear- 
ers admit as much of the power and 
sovereignty of Grod as make it the true 
wisdom of man to do His will and cul- 
tivate His friendship. Our life is in 
His hand ; He compasses all our ways— 
and go where we will we shall never 
find a place beyond the limits of His 
omnipresence. Did He overlook us we 
might be unmindful of Him ; but, won- 
derful to tell, the same eye which em- 
braces creation in all its amplitude, is 
fastened attentively upon every one of 
us. The same Being who counteth the 
stars, numbers every hair of our head, 
and registers every minute of our exist- 
ence. Minuteness cannot escape Him, 
variety cannot bewilder Him, extent and 
magnificence cannot overpower Him. 
By Him all things consist; and from 
the planets and the systems above us to 
the particles of dust which float upon 


the sunbeam—all is submitted to the ~ 


guidance of His everlasting hand, and 
the notice of His vigilant and ever-dis- 
cerning eye. 

O ye men who .ive without God in 
the world, the mockery you pour on 
those who fear Him is nothing better 
than an idiot’s laugh! The sins which 
you commit every hour, and which die 
away in forgetfulness from your con- 
science, are lost and dissipated amid the 
variety of other things which checker 
the history of this crowded universe. 
God sees them, and God does not forget 


xiv. ] 


them. They are treasured up in the 
book of His remembrance; and in that 
day when the books are opened, you 
will again hear of them. In that great 
day of His wrath, all the elements He 
has formed will be the ministers of His 
justice ; and when this earth is shaking 
from under you, and these heavens 
scowl upon you with an altered counte- 
nance, who is there among you that 
shall be able to stand ? 

The topic is inexhaustible, and I shall 
therefore range all my remaining obser- 
vations under a third and last head. 
One leading ingredient of that religion 
which many call madness, is a fearless 
and consistent adherence to the language 
and the doctrines and the morality of the 
Bible. There is among all professing 
Christians an avowed respect for Script- 
ural Christianity ; but this respect is no 
security whatever, if upon the plea ofa 
sober and rational interpretation, every 
man may take to himself a license for 
the most unbounded deviations from the 
sense and spirit of the Scriptures. This 
way of moulding and chastening ‘the 
language of the Bible, to bring it down 
to the standard of our previous concep- 
tion, is in fact disdaining its authority. 
It is taking up with a religion of our 
own—it is resting in the sufficiency of 
our own fancies ; and this feeling of suf- 
ficiency will carry many much farther 
than to the mere exercise of garbling 
the record. Why, they will feel an in- 
dependence upon its information alto- 
gether, and they will cease to consult it. 
This has often given rise toa display of 
ignorance and temerity which on any 
other subject would be positively ludi- 
crous. 

In the most noted performance of 
the day against the vagaries of Metho- 
dism,* the laugh is often raised against 
an undoubted doctrine of the Bible, and 
what is more decisive still, the examples 
which are given of Methodistical non- 
sense, and Methodistical phraseology, 
are the very nonsense and the very 
phraseology of the New Testament. 
They disclaim all acquaintance with the 
children of light and of grace; while it 

* Rev. Sydney Smith’s paper on Methodism, in No. 
XXII. of the Edinburgh Review, pp. 342 and 345. The 
phrases commented on by Dr. Chalmers are there 


quoted from the Diary of a Mrs. Roberts, as given in 
the Methodist Magazine. 


DEFENCE OF RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. 


493 


is the solemn language of the Bible, 
that they who are not among the chil- 
dren of light are among the children of 
a world lying in wickedness ; and they 
who are not heirs of grace and the ves- 


sels of mercy, are the vessels of wrath 


fitted to destruction. They hold up a 
Christian to derision, who sai that “ her 
soul was stayed upon God.” Now, al- 
though Isaiah does not promise to such 
peace from the world, he promises a 
peace which the world knoweth not :— 
“ Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, 
whose mind is stayed on thee.” But 
her mind was “in a most praying frame, 
going out of herself and taking shelter 
in God.” I know not how obedience to 
an express injunction of the apostle, 
“ Rejoice in the Lord always, and again 
I say rejoice,” could be more truly rep- 
resented. But she felt herself “ helpless 
as an infant, and depended upon God 
for all things.” Paul must come in 
here for his share of the derision. He 
was not sufficient of himself—his suffi- 
ciency was of God; and he calls upon 
us to trust in the living God, “ who giv- 
eth us all things richly to enjoy.” But 
she felt that the Lord “ was waiting to 
be gracious.” What a still higher de- 
gree of Methodism must the Christian 
disciples of Peter have arrived at, who 
actually tasted that the Lord was gra- 
cious. But the “spirit of prayer and 
supplication was given to her.” If this 
process be nothing better than a fanciful 
chimera, the prophet who foretold it was 
a dreamer of dreams. He should be 
deposed from the canon; and the only 
way of being consistent would be to 
make the other prophets and apostles 
and evangelists follow him successively. 
But “the assurance was given to her 
that she was accepted in the Beloved.” 
And yet we are told that the same thing 
was given to the Thessalonians, when 
the Gospel came to them not in word 
only, but in power and in the Holy 
Ghost, and in much assurance. It is 
the constant and established way in 
which the assurance comes. It is al- 
ways given. “ You are saved by faith, 
and that not by yourselves, it is the gift 
of God.” The acceptance in the Beloved 
may sound Methodistically in the ears 
of those to whom the preaching of the 
New Testament 's foolishness; but it is 


~ 


494 


the very thing which the Apostle Paul 
and his Ephesian disciples knew them- 
selves to be in possession of, and they 
gave praise to the glory of His grace 
wherein they had been made accepted 
in the Beloved. But what shall we 
make of their manifestations? If the 
manifestations of the Saviour to the soul 
be not a reality, then Christ is a de- 
ce.ver; and the tone of truth, and of 
tenderness, which give all the charm of 
a most pathetic eloquence to His fare- 
well address are nothing better than the 
artifices of a hypocrite. “ He that lov- 
eth me shall be loved of my Father, and 
I will love him, and will manifest my- 
self to him.” Ay, and such a manifes- 
tation too, as the men of the world may 
weil wonder at, for they have no share 
in it. He will manifest Himself unto 
His own, and not unto the world. 

Now, would such men only stand on 
the open and declared ground’ of infi- 
delity, we would be at no loss as to the 
kind of argument which should be 
brought to bear upon them; and we 
need be at as little loss on the ground 
which they have actually taken up. 
They avow themselves Christians, and 
all [ ask of them is to bring their 
thoughts into the captivity of the obe- 
dience of Christ. We concur with them 
in the desire that religion were pruned 
of all the extravagance which has been 
grafted upon it; but how has this ex- 
travagance arisen? Why, by men tra- 
velling out of the record, and giving all 
the authority of sacredness to their own 
imaginations. In this way they have 
‘added to the words of this book; but is 
it not an equally daring invasion upon 
the Bible when men are found to take 
away from it? And if the very terms 
and doctrines of the Bible are held up 
to derision as the reveries of fanaticism, 
is it not a proof that these doctrines are 
falsified and disowned in the reveries of 
a spurious philosophy? Surely, if this 
be the message of God, all taste and 
imagination and science must vanish 
and give way before its overbearing 
authority! This is the great light 
which puts out all the lesser ones. It 
shines in many a conventicle, while it 
leaves halls and colleges in the shadow 
of darkness—the men whom the world 


call mad are walking in it, while the | 


DEFENCE OF RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. 


[ SERM- 


men whom the world call wise walk in 
the sparks of their own kindling. The 
god of this world has blinded them—he 
has surrounded the truth as it is in 
Jesus with associations of meanness 
andcontempt. To their perverted minds 
he has turned the preaching of Christ 
into foolishness, and given to the words 
of truth and soberness the colouring of 
a visionary’s dream. 

This is a sad delusion ; and it is woe- 
ful to think how many thousands are 
held in it. There is not a secular com- 
pany you can go into where piety would 
not be laughed at as an extravagance, 
and where the man who is altogether a 
Christian would not be looked upon as 
having forfeited his pretensions to sense 
and soberness. The general tone of 
society is at antipodes with the tone of 
the New Testament; and though you 
were to go to the very outermost limits 
of lawful accommodation, you would, if 
sanctified by the faith that is in Jesus, 
stand at an unapproachable distance 
from the men of the world, and carry 
such an aspect of singularity in the 
whole system of your concerns, as would 
mark you out to bea peculiar people. 
This is what thousands recoil from, and 
they tamely surrender themselves to the 
influence and example of the overwhelm- 
ing majority around them. They fol- 
low the multitude to do evil, and with 
the multitude they will perish :—* For 
whosoever shall be ashamed of me and 
of my works in this sinful generation 
of him also shall the Son of man be 
ashamed when he cometh in the glory 
of His Father with the holy angels.” 

There is only one part of the alterna 
tive which the Christian minister can 
press upon you—Come out from among 
them, and in the language of Peter to 
the Jewish multitude, “ Save yourselves 
from this untoward generation.” Then 
they had to sustain the persecution of 
violence, and now you will have to sus- 
tain the equally effective persecution of 
ridicule and ‘contempt. Christ endured 
the contradiction of sinners, but it was 
for the joy that was set before Him. 
The same troubles await you here, but 
if you endure unto the-end, you will 
share in the same triumphs hereafter. 
Take not up with a measured Chris- 
tianity ; bid adieu to all partitioning 


xv.] 


betwixt Christ and the world. He who 
followeth Him must forsake all; and 
the work of providing for eternity is 
surely ample enough in its exercises, 
and rich enough in its rewards, to en- 
grog? and to occupy the whole man. 

uffer not any one thing to come into 
competition with it. It is only against 
one competitor that I have attempted to 
arm. you—the opinion of your acquaint- 
ances—many of whom may wonder at 
the change ; and when they see in your 
life and conversation the fruits meet for 
repentance, may denounce them in every 
company as the oddities of an altered 
man. ‘This you may look for, and this 
you must brave. It is the trial of your 
faith ; and when [I take a survey of 
that unchristian complexion which ap- 
pears so broadly and so visibly on the 
face of the world, I cannot but think 
that the Christians of the day have the 
very same exercise of principle to go 
through with the Christians of a more 
stormy and unsettled period. There is 
a greater similarity than is generally 
conceived—the only difference is in the 
species of persecution; and when I 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY. 





495 


think of the many thousands who in 
the high flush of gallantry and honour 
would rather die than be affronted, I 
will not say that the persecution of con- 
tempt is not more tremendous than the 
persecution of personal violence. It will 
cost you nothing to be just such a 
Christian as the average of those around 
you; but to pass from the nominal in- 
difference of the age to the entire and 
devoted Christianity of the New Testa- 
ment, is almost as mighty a stride as to 
pass to it from the abominations of 
heathenism. Be assured that in such 
a cause singularity 1s wisdom, and a 
prudent accommodation to the world is 
madness. It is only a little while that 
they will have to laugh at you, or to 
say of any one of you, that he is beside 
himself. God, and eternity, and the 
Bible are with you, and what though 
the men of the world be against you ? 
A few years will bring round your vin- 
dication ; and amid the awful realities 
of the judgment, it will appear that the 
way of the derided Christian is indeed 
a way of truth and soberness ! 





SERMON XV. 


Farewell Discourses at Kilmany.* 


‘Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith, To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. ’ 


—Hesrews iii. 7, 8. 


Bur this is a subject on which I can 


expatiate no more, and you will forgive | 
| fact not be hearing for eternity. This 


me if I should even studiously keep 
aloof from it in the future course of this 
day’s services. It is a subject, the in- 


troduction of which may unfit the mind | 


for purer and better exercises. It may 
distress without edifying. It may hurt 
the speaker; and those who are around 


* On the closing Sabbath of his ministry at Kilmany, 
July 9, 1815, Dr. Chalmers preached three short ser- 
mons—the first intended to awaken the secure—the 
second to direct the awakened—the third to counsel the 
believer. The second of these sermons, on the text 
Isaiah lvi. 1, 2, is omitted here, as occupied with the 
same topic which was insisted on in the “ Address to 
the Inhabitants of the Parish of Kilmany.” (See Works, 
vol. xii. p. 71.) The introductory paragraph of the first 
sermon, in which there was an allusion to the special 
circumstances of the day, I have not been able to re- 
cover, so that it opens abruptly. 


| 





him, while deeply affected with one of 
the many fluctuations of time, may in 


is the higher ground to which 1 want to 
confine myself. 

A man in common language is called 
hard-hearted who would refuse his tear 
and his sensibilities on an occasion like 
the present. But he may give way to 
all the excesses of tenderness, and yet 
be hard-hearted in the sense of my text. 
An object of sight may engage his 
every affection ; and when that object is 
shifted away from him, he might aban- 
don himself to the violence of grief 
Yet wonderful to tell, in the matters of 


faith, the heart of this very man might 


remain hard as a nether millstone. 


496 


Eternity with all its mighty claims 
upon the attention of every imperisha- 
ble ».emg might have no power to 
move him. The unseen God who gives 
him every breath might knock at his 
bosom by the warnings of His provi- 
dence and His ministers, and it remain 
shut and shielded against them all. 
That guilt which the angels see him to 
be covered with he might not see nor be 
sensible of; and because there is noth- 
ing which the world can point its finger 
at—nothing which the people around 
him who are as spiritually blinded as 
himself can fasten upon him as a defor- 
mity in their eyes—he may remain un- 
appalled when we tell him that there is 
a lurking sinfulness within, about which 
it were well if we could soften his heart, 
and fill it with the suspicions and alarms 
it has yet been a stranger to—that with 
all his decencies and his accomplish- 
ments he is a forgetter of God—he is 
alive to the world, but he is dead to the 


Maker of it—he is an habitual stranger | 


to the influence of God’s authority over 
him, and if he remain so, God will turn 
him into hell. 


Let me, therefore, make one attempt | 


more to pull down the strongholds of 
carnal security within you. I address 
myself to the careless and unawa- 
kened—to those who have not yet be- 
come seriously alive-to the danger of 
their souls—to those who have never 
yet pressed home upon their consciences 
the high questions of sin and of salva- 
tion—to those who have hitherto been 
in the habit of spending their days as if 
their all were in the world, as if eternity 
lay far, and very far in the background 
of their contemplations—as if it were 
seen to stand at such a vast and im- 
measurable distance from them that it 
offered no immediate call upon their at- 


tention whatever ; or, to speak more cor- | 


rectly perhaps, as if it were not seen 
and were not looked to at all. Yes! 
my brethren, there is a thick covering 
upon the face of these people; and it 
does not lie within the strength or com- 
pass of a human arm to draw aside the 
veil which hides from them the realities 
of the spiritual world. This, my breth- 
ren, [ can vouch to be the result of all 
my little experience as a Christian min- 
ister. I feel that there is a power of 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY. 





[SERM. 


resistance in human nature above the 
power of argument and beyond it— 
that something else must be brought to 
bear upon you than the demonstrations 
of human reasoning or the eloquence 
of a human voice—that these have all 
the feebleness of carnal weapons when 
brought into the contest with the dark 
and sullen and obstinate enmity of the 
natural mind against the things of God ; 
that another power, mighty to the pull- 
ing down of strongholds, must be called 
in to aid the high service of the Chris- 
tian ministry; that the man who rests 
his hope of success on his own might or 
his own wisdom puts this power away 
from him, and that the only right atti- 
tude for grappling it with our people is 
that of the apostle, who rested all his 
sufficiency on God, and never thought 
of himself but with weakness, and with 
fear, and with much trembling. 

I desire, therefore, in what remains to 
throw myself upon the aids of the Spirit 
of God, and I shall endeavour, in the 
further prosecution of the subject, to 
soften your hearts, first, by a sense of 
guilt; secondly, by a sense of danger; 
and thirdly, by the touching argument 
of my text--giving you to know that 
the call of to-day may never be repeat- 
ed—that the season of grace may not 


| be prolonged to the uncertain morrow— 


and that while at this interesting now, 
all who hear the word:of salvation and 
will to accept of it shall be welcome. 
they who put it away from them are 
just hardening their hearts against the 
solemnity of all future warnings, and 
that the call of another day may never 
be brought to bear with energy upon 
their consciences. , 


I. Harden not your hearts against a 


'sense of your guilt—look fairly at the 


matter. I am sure that many, if not all 


\of you, must be sensible that against 
the God who brought you into being, 


and keeps you in it. just as long as it 


pleases Him, and tells you what is His 
| will, and what is your duty—that against 


Him you have times and ways without 


‘number been guilty of positive and spe- 
| cific sins. 


But some, my brethren, have 
fewer visible transgressions than others, 


and they compare themselves with them- 
selves, and thus bring their conduct to 


xv. ] 


the low standard of human estimation, 
and they pronounce upon themselves a 
very smooth and a very satisfying ver 
dict. What then do they make of their 
Bible, wherein we are told that the heart 
is deceitful above all things, and despe- 
rately wicked—that the whole world is 
guilty before God—that men by nature 
are the children of wrath, and that, un- 
less the remedy provided in the gospel 
be taken and applied, it is a wrath which 
abideth on them? Why. my brethren, 
these truths are seldom looked at, and 
vet if they would seek a little farther 
into their own hearts, these truths might 
be made manifest to their consciences. 
(so not, my brethren, to deceive your- 
selves into a light sense of your exceed- 
ing selfishness, because the men around 
you have little to reproach you with. 
Look not to the people around you, but 
iook to God. It isnot so much this one 
act of sin and that other act of it which 
makes you a sinner in his eye. It is 
the whole bent of your hearts being 
away from Him. Itis, what f am sure 
you must be all conscious of, my breth- 
ren, your perpetual tendency to turn 
every man to his own way, and to think 
not and care not whether God has a will 
and away for you. It is the want of an 
habitual commitment of yourselves to 
His guidance. You have got your cre- 
ation from Him, and many gifts and 
enjoyments to please you after you have 
been created. And how come you on 
with them? Why, just living asif your 
great end were to please yourselves and 
to make yourselves happy with the gifts. 
and forget the giver. God had an end 
in your creation, but you never mind His 
end, and make your own end take the 
precedency of His altogether. When 
He formed His creatures He did not 
from that moment give up all further 
concern with them. He has a will for 
them to observe, but they follow after 
their own will—and only give them 
enough of the good things which God 
has provided, they are perfectly satisfied 
to give up all further concern with God. 
It is this disinclination of the heart to 
Him which forms the very essence and 
principle of their guilt—which puts the 
inner man into a state of rebellion— 
which makes one and all of us in our 
natural state live without God in the 
63 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY. 


49% 


world, and which, under all the varieties 
of outward conduct—at one time mon 
strous, at another ordinary, at another 
becoming, at another amiable—const- 
tutes us guilty of hourly and habitual 
disobedience against Him. Harden not 
your hearts against the exceeding sin- 
fulness of all this to forget God who 
gives you the very things which steal 
your hearts away from Him—to disown 
Him who, were He to withdraw His 
supporting hand, could make you fall to 
pleces—to resist His pleading and en- 
treating and remonstrating voice when 
He calls upon you for the glory due unto 
Him—to cast Him off from that ascen- 
dency over you which is surely His 
right—and to banish from your hearts 
the principle of respect unto His will, 


‘and of reverence for His character and 


His name. 


II. Harden not your hearts against 
a sense of danger. When one thinks of 
his guilt he feels, or he ought to feel, re- 
morse. When one thinks of his dan- 
ger, he feels, or he ought to feel, alarm. 
There is such a thing as a determined 
shutting out of both these sentiments 
from the heart; and this is just the 
hardening of the text. It was by Pha- 
raoh’s heart being hardened against 
the terror of the awful threatenings 
which were sounded in his ear, that 
he persisted in his own infatuations, and 
got all these threatenings realized upon 
him. And this will be the result of the 
hardenings of your heart too. my breth- 
ren. Unless the heart of stone be taken 
out of you. and a heart of flesh be given, 
and you become soft and easily per- 
suaded by the terrors of the Lord, those 
terrors will all be turned into realities. 
Instead of the prospect you will soon 
have the possession of the coming mise- 
ry; and for the apprehension of God's 
wrath now, you will be doomed then to 
the dire and everlasting endurance of it. 
How, think you, can it be otherwise? 
God, your maker and your absolute pro- 
prietor, tells you what He wants you to 
do for Him—and the thing is not done 
—and He is cheated of the loyalty of 
His own creatures—and they walk in 
the counsel of their own hearts and in 
the sight of their own eyes—and they 
chalk out a line for themselves, which 


498 


they wilfully persevere in. If he had 
said, “ I leave you todo as you like,” good 
and well; but He has said—and has 
He not the right of saying—* This is 
the way, walk ye in it ;” but no, we turn 
every man to his own way, and will not 
have God to reign over us, and cast off 
from us the yoke of his authority, and 
walk in the imagination of our own 
hearts—and all this in the face of God 
warning and pleading and threatening 
and telling us, in language too solemn 
to be treated by us with mockery, that 
the man who continueth not in the 
words of the book of His law to do them, 
is accursed. QO, my brethren, go not to 
dispose lightly and easily of the warn- 
ings of God. Go not to think of Him 
as of a God that can be mocked or 
turned from His purpose. 

It strikes me as an awfully emphatic 
description of God, when we are told of 
Him that he hath said it, and shall He 
not doit? Let us think of the solem- 
nity and the number of His sayings di- 
rected against the children of iniquity ; 
and let us farther think that it is enough 
to stamp us all the children of iniquity 
that our hearts are habitually away from 
God. What more damning iniquity 
than to refuse our hearts to Him who 
gave us them—who set them and who 
keeps them beatine—who requires them 
of us in these words, “ My son give me 
thy heart”—and who tells that He will 
at last set this sin in all its sinfulness 
before our eyes, and bids us consider, 
“ we that forget God, lest He tear us in 
pieces. and there shall be none to deliv- 
er.” Beassured that the threats of God 
have a meaning, that the warnings of 
God have an accomplishment, and that 
there is notasingle denunciation he has 





uttered which does not carry a terrible 


reality along with it. As surely. my 
brethren, as these bodies of yours shall 
be carried to the grave, so surely shall 
these souls of yours return to the God 
who gave them. 


to be given in. There is a day for the 


manifestation of God’s wrath against all | 


unrighteousness of men. ‘There is a 
judgment-seat to be raised in the sight 
of men andof angels. There is a great 
convocation to be held, at which all of 
this world, and many of other worlds, 


There is an account | 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY. 





[SERM. 


in glory will not witness on that day the 
weakness of a degraded and an insulted 
God. O no, my brethren, there will be 
a terrible vindication of truth and jus- 
tice and holiness and majesty. On that 
day each unreconciled sinner will mourn 
apart; and I call on each who now 
hears to look home to his own bosom— 
not to stifle any movement of conscience 
which he may feel there, but to put and 
to press the high question of his accept- 
ance with God, and not to give it over 
till he has thoroughly sought after the 
way of peace, and assuredly found it, 
“ To-day, while it is called to-day, harden 


not your hearts.” 


Ili. And O that this prominent con- 
sideration of the text had its right influ- 
ence upon you, my brethren. This is 
my third and my last head of discourse. 
Here you all are in life and in the exer- 
cise of vour faculties—and what is the 
interesting point yor occupy? Why, 
my brethren, there 1s not one of you 
who may not find peace with God if he 
will—who may not obtain eternal life if 
he will—who may not come to a gra- 
cious and accessible Saviour, who may 
not obtain mercy to pardon him, and 
grace to help him, if he will All, if 
you will, my brethren. But you may 
not will to forsake all and come to 
Christ. You may not will to give up 
your evil deeds and your evil habits and 
return unto God, dog works meet for 
tepentance. You may not will that that 
heart of yours should resign its own 
imaginations, and be devoted with all 
its affections to Him who formed and 
who redeemed you. You may not will 
to be altogether wrought upon by the 
constraining influence of the Saviour’s 
love, and live no longer to yourselves 
but to Him who died for you. and who 
rose again. No; you may perhaps like 
better to go on in the old and wonted 
way, and then you just realize upon you 
the words of the Saviour when He said 
—* And this is their condemnation, that 
light is come into the world, and men 
loved darkness rather than light, be- 
cause their deeds are evil.” 

But O recollect, my brethren, that if 
this be your present state, it is not a 
state which it will do to die in; it is not 





shall be present. The angels whocome | that state which it will do to carry to 


XVI. | 


the grave with you. Here we are alive 
and on the face of the world. Think of 
the ashes of the many generations that 
are below you. We are surrounded by 
the monuments of the dead, and you are 
just now sitting on the dust of men of 
other times. In a little while, and you 
will lie down among them; and O how 
many souls which once owned these 
mouldering bodies would prize the oppor- 
tunity of you living men. O in what 
lively colors do they see the folly of that 
desperate infatuation which hung over 
them during their abode in the world, 
and in which I call on you, my breth- 
ren, no longer to harden yourselves. Go 
not to say, that it is time enough. The 
call is to-day. Let alone till to-morrow, 
and what may be the consequence ? 
Some may be dead—many will be out 
of the way of those arguments which I 
‘am now bringing to besr upon you. 
The truths you meet with here you will 
not so readily meet with at the business 
of your shops and your farms and your 
workhouses. 

But, most impressive consideration of 
all, to-morrow comes, and it finds one 
and all of you who now resist the call 
still harder and more impenitent than 
to-day found you. You are hard ‘in- 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY., 


499 


deed if you resist this day’s call; but 
the very resistance will make you 
harder still) It is a mischief which 
grows upon you every hour. He who 
is proof against the solemnity of a pres- 
ent warning is likelier far to be proof 
against the solemnity of a future; and 
thus, my brethren, the evil grows upon 
you continually. Sin gains a firmer 
ascendency. Satan holds you more 
closely in his wiles; and never is the 
hardness of a human heart seen in 
more affecting colours than it often is 
in an old man at the brink of eternity. 
Hold out no longer. Feel the necessity 
of some great movement in the matters 
of religion ere you die, and begin at 
this moment to resolve, and to learn, 
and to stir yourselves in the work of 
going about it. I will not try any 
other eloquence upon such a subject 
than the eloquence of simplicity and 
affection ; and I therefore conclude with 
urging it as my warmest, my friend- 
liest, and most earnest adieu to you, to 
feel the impression of this one truth— 
that something must be done; and 
with the farewell voice of to-day, while 
it is called to-day, I beseech you, my 
dear friends, to take to the doing of it 
immediately. 


SERMON XVI. 


Farewell Discourses at Kilmany. 


“ As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.” —Cotossians i. 6, 


_ Noruine can be clearer from both 
the doctrine and examples of the New 
Testament, than that a man changes 
the course of his life on his becoming, 
in the true sense of the term, a Chris- 
tian. There is no such thing as receiv- 
ing Christ, and after that walking just 
as you were wont todo. Paul tells us 
in the beginning of this epistle, that he 
was thankful to God when he heard of 
the faith of the Colossians. In the 
verse preceding the text he tells us that 
he joyed when he beheld their order. 
There was a method or line of proceed- 
ing which a man who adopts the faith 
of Christ must necessarily observe, and 


it was from their observance of this 
method indeed that he inferred the 
steadfastness of their faith in Christ. 
There is such a thing as Jearning Christ 
differently and receiving Him differ- 
ently; and according to the way in 
which we receive Him will be the way 
in which we shall feel it our duty to 
walk in Him. Some receive Him as a 
dispenser of forgiveness only, and they 
walk securely on in the commission of 
sin; others add to His former capacity 
that of a teacher, but overlooking the 
doctrine of being able to do nothing 
without Christ, they satisfy themselves 
with such decencies of conduct as they 


500 


can observe—such proprieties of civil 
and social life as they can act up to 
even on other principles than that of 
submission to the authority of Christ ; 
and as for the more spiritual obedience 
of the devoted Christian, they make no 
attempt after it, but just do as they can 
in their own strength, and make over 
the mighty burden of all their deficien- 
cies on the atonement of the Saviour. 

Others again receive Him both as 
their Sanctifier and Saviour, and they 
never stop short at any one point of at- 
tainment under the feeling that they 
can get no farther; they do not rest 
satisfied with the civil and social pro- 
prieties of life under the impression that 
their nature is incapable of higher or 
larger measures of obedience. They 
know that the believing Christian is 
backed at all times by the promised 
aids of the Spirit of God, with the dis- 
pensation of which Christ their Saviour 
is intrusted, who has become Christ 
‘heir Sanctifier also; and_ therefore, 
counting on this mighty accession of 
strength to all their endeavours, they 
do not strike the low aim of luke-warm 
decency, but they devote themselves to 
the obedience of the Gospel in all the 
extent and spirituality of its require- 
ment—their aim is to be perfect, even 
as their Father in heaven is perfect. 
Krom the more obvious right things 
which they began with, and which in 
my last discourse I urged you to begin 
with inmediately—such as fidelity and 
plain-dealing and courteousness, and the 
avoiding of all that is plainly wrong, 
and such other moral accomplishments 
as the world can admire, and as world- 
ly men with the profession of Christian- 
ity can practise, and think they do 
enough—I say, from all these moral 
accomplishments they proceed onward 
to higher and greater things than these. 
I know that at this point they are loolx- 
ed upon by the men that are without to 
have entered into the borders of fanati- 
cism. They are abandoned by the 
respect and sympathy of neighbours ; 
they are looked upon as having got 
into a visionary region of feelings and 
spiritualities and devotional sentiment ; 
they are at one time accused of indiffer- 
ence to good works, not because they 
weglect them, but because, with every 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY. 


[SERM. 


diligence in the doing of them, they 
aspire after still higher and better ac- 
complishments; they are at another 
time charged with attempting a pitch 
of obedience far too strict and elevated 
and holy for the feeble powers of hu- 
manity, and so they readily allow it to 
be; but they have received Christ as 
the Lord their strength as well as the 
Lord their righteousness, and they go 
to Him daily upon the errand of getting 
power for the high achievements of a 
spiritual obedience, as well as upon the 
errand of getting pardon for those many 
defects of which they are most deeply 
and. feelingly sensible ; and they do not 
miss their errand, because they know 
in whom it is that they have trusted, 
and an actual power is made daily to 
rest upon them which explains the 
whole difference in point of attainment 
between them and others, and on the 
strength of Christ’s supplies they ‘not 
only outstrip their neighbours upon the 
ground of ordinary and familiar duties, 
but they are raised to an impassable 
distance from them; and in the high 
and difficult enterprise of charity and 
forbearance, and devotion of self and all 
its interests at the call of principle, and 
habitual sense of God and a constant. 
habit of acting to His glory, they carry 
over the whole face of their history the 
aspect of a very peculiar people, causing 
the men who are without at one time 
to laugh and at another to wonder, and 
another to yield the reluctant homage 
of their respect and admiration. 

In the prosecution of the following 
discourse, I shall enter more at large 
into the three different ways of receiv- 
ing Christ, which I have rapidly glane- 
ed at in my introduction, and shall at- 
tempt to lay before you the kind of 
walk corresponding to each of these 
ways. 

The first way of receiving Christ is 
to take Him for the single object of for- 
giveness; the second is to take Him 
both as a priest who has wrought out 
forgiveness, and a teacher who has pre- 
scribed a rule of life to us; and the 
third way is to take Him as a priest 
and a teacher and a sanctifier, who, in 
this last capacity, enables us whe so 
receive Him as to act up to the rule of. 
life laid down by Him as our teacher. 


Xvi] 


I. The first way of receiving Christ 
I take to be very common—a resting 
in Him for forgiveness and a wilful 
going on in sin at one and thé same 
time—a taking of Him for our all- 
sufficient atonement, and for this object 
singly ; and what is the walk corres- 
ponding to this view of the matter ?— 
why, just such a walk as you may see 
often exemplified in zealous professors 
of the faith—men of declared and ver 
ostensible orthodoxy, and who resist all 
admonitions to duty, just as if their re- 
sistance formed part of their creed. [I 


am not speaking of the erroneous spec- | 
|after they have so received Christ as 


ulations of authors—I speak of the 
practical error of private Christians, and 
I do think it is an error to be often met 
with among men who have a relish for 
doctrine and do attend to the subject of 
their acceptance with God. Why, they 
do cultivate a determined confidence in 
the sufficiency of Christ for pardon, and 
just as if they liked to put this sufficien- 
cy to the trial, they go on contracting 
new sins every day, without its ever 


occurring to them that to make head | 


against these sins and to cast off their 
dominion, formed part of their calling 
as the disciples of the Lord Jesus. 
_ With the exception of the single notion 
they have gotten from the time they 


became what they call orthodox, they | 


remain just as they were. 

This notion is that by determinedly 
trusting in Christ they will obtain the 
forgiveness of all their sins, and they 
exercise a kind of trust which quiets 
and satisfies them in the mean time, but 
in every other respect they are quite the 
old man—not a single vice of heart or 
of temper, or of conduct that does not 
remain in all its strength with them; 
and what makes the case still more 
hopeless, they do not seem to think that 
to struggle against all this forms any 
part of their business as Christians. 
Nay, they somehow or other look upon 
any anxiety upon these points as a thing 
that would spoil the entireness of their 
orthodoxy. It would betray a want of 
faith in the sufficiency of Christ; it 
would be an invasion upon His prov- 
ince by trying to do themselves what 
He has power enough to do for them, 
and will do for them if they only be- 
lieve. It is to take the honour of their 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY. 





501 


salvation out of His hands; and thus 
their remissness in practice has got a 
kind of principle in which they glory, 
and which they would think it wrong 
if they gave up. to rest upon. You see, 
then, how difficult it must be to dislodgé 
these people out of the stronghold of 
security in which they have intrenched 
themselves, and how hard to beat them 
out of their indolence and their sin when 
being free from all anxiety on these 
points forms part of that very system by 
which they think they are doing honour 
to the Saviour. Their walk in all ordi- 
nary matters then will be just the same 


before they received Him. There may 
be a change in some of those easier and 
more practicable things by which they 
think they do more direct honour to the 
Saviour and more openly testify their 
faith and their attachment to Him— 
such as more frequent attendance on 
His express ordinances—more. exclusive 
association with people who think as 
they do themselves—more decided sep- 
aration from those who think differently. 
All this is very easy, and it is acted up 
to; but as to gentleness in domestic 
life, or honesty in social life, or useful- 
ness in public life, or any one thing 
which costs them a struggle with their 
taste or temper or inclination, this they 
do not look upon as forming any part 
of their calling; and it is grievous to 
think how at the very moment that they 
are dividing Christ, or worshipping a 
Christ of their own, or taking away 
from the Christ of the New Testament 
a number of his revealed characters, 
and shutting out from their conscience 
altogether the impressiveness of His 
solemn remonstrance—‘ Why call ye 
me Lord, Lord, and do not the things 
which I say ?”—it is truly grievous to 
think that all the time they look upon 
themselves as doing Him honour, and 
that Christ is magnified by them, in 
no one part of their conduct do they ever 
think of living to His will, but to their 
own. 


II. But there is another class of pro- 


fessing Christians who are so far scan- 


dalized at the errors and abuses of those 
I have already noticed, as to receive 
Christ for a teacher as well as for an 


502 


atonement. I think I am quite sure 
that there is a very numerous set of 
people who neither discard from them 
the notion that Christ’s death is an 
atonement for sin, nor the notion that 
Christ’s will has a binding authority 
over the conduct of all His disciples ; 
but who think at the same time that, as 
they have carried their own natural un- 
derstanding to the doctrine of the atone- 
ment, and acquiesce in it, so they may 
carry their own natural strength to the 
performance of the duties, and be able 
to accomplish them in such a way as to 
secure their acceptance with God. Now, 
what is the effect of this? In their own 
strength they are able to do many things 
without any sense of God’s will urging 
them to the performance at all. Is it 
not quite competent, for example, to a 
man, without any reference to Christ or 
religion whatever in his heart, to feel a 
movement of compassion at the sight of 
distress, and to relieve it—to feel a 
movement of indignation at the mean- 
ress of dishonesty, and be upright—to 
eel an animating glow of cordiality in 
the discharge of civil and friendly atten- 
tions, and be courteous—to feel all the 
delight of occupation in the bustle of 
active and useful employment, and have 
a public-spirited readiness to all good 
works ? 

Now, it so happens that the first days 
of professors are often woefully desti- 
tute of all these social accomplishments. 
and when urged to them by the will of 
Christ, they bring their wrong-headed 
orthodoxy in resistance to them. and 
bring a most lamentable discredit on 
the faith which they profess, by a most 
unlovely and revolting exhibition of all 
that is sour and repulsive in ordinary 
conduct, combined with a system of 
religious opinions, staunch, intolerant, 
flaming, and obstinately adhered to. 
This puts the second class upon high 
vantage ground, and much may be 
learned from what each of them is heard 
to say of their dislike or opposition to 
the other. You are men of works, say 
those of the first class; but we have 
Scripture on our side, for by faith is a 
man saved, and not by the works of the 
law. Our confidence is as much better 
grounded than yours as the purity of 
Christ’s righteousness exceeds the pu- 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY. 


_[SERM. 


rity of man’s righteousness; and this, 
combined with many texts of Scripture, 
gives these people the appearance of 
some reason and a great weight of Bi- 
ble authority on their side. On the 
other hand, Ye are men of faith, say 
those of the second class, and ye dislike 
works, and that very thing of which the 
Bible requires us to be zealous you dis- 
card from your system altogether. Nay, 
you go so far as to fasten the brand of 
heterodoxy on our zeal for morality ; 
but we have Scripture on our side as 
well as you, and by the correctness of 
our conduct and the native claims of 
our system—which befriends virtue—on 
the admiration of men, we are quite 
sure that we are going more scripturally 
about the business of our religion than 
you who despise what the Saviour taught, 
and put away from you all that is prac- 
tical in the writings of His apostles. 
This is what each can and does say to 
the other, and I call upon you to mark 
the defects of each. The first are most 
egregiously wrong by the want of a 
zealous and hearty concurrence in the 
duties of the Christian life, and they do 
not see afar off, and they forget that 
every true Christian is purged from his 
old sins; and they are blind to this 
truth, that to put off the deeds of the old 
man, and to put on the new man and 
his works, forms a most essential part 
of their calling as the disciples of the 
Lord Jesus. And the second are also 
most egregiously wrong, for they are 
blind to another most essential truth— 
they do not acknowledge their natural 
inability for any good thing—they pro- 
fess to receive Christ as their teacher, 
but it is only as a teacher of those things 
which they can do without him strength- 
ening them—they strike the low aim of 
such duties and such accomplishments 
as man can arrive at by his own strength 
—they may and they do admit the use 
of Christ as an atonement, for they allow 
that they have their infirmities, and that 
He by His death wrought out an expi- 
ation for them; but they do not seem 
to think that there is any use for Christ 
as a purifier of a degenerate world from 
that corruption which the world cannot, 
with all the force of its natural princi- 
ples, shake off’ There is one sense in 
which the; allow Him to be the purifier 


xvi. ] 


and that is by the tendency of His sub- 
lime and excellent precepts to reform 
and exalt and purify the whole man. 
And so they would if they were obeyed. 
But here lies the very point of their de- 
fectiveness. They think it is enough 
if they just yield such an obedience to 
the precepts and such a conformity to 
the example of Christ as they find them- 
selves able to compass and to make out 
in their own strength. They are blind 
to the truth, that in order to these pre- 
cepts taking effect upon them, there must 
not merely be a voice without—calling 
upon them to do, but a power within 
—enabling them to perform. Now, this 
power is not in them by nature; and 
they think it enough if they just yield 
such a degree of obedience as nature can 
accomplish, or, in other words, no spirit- 
ual obedience at all. The power must 
be put in them by grace, and must be 
earnestly prayed for, and must go along 
with every one exercise of duty, and 
thus it is that Christ acts as the purifier 
of a corrupt and degenerate world, not 
merely by the delivery of excellent rules, 
but by the dispensation of strength for 
acting up tothem. And these men who 
feel not the necessity of this strength— 
_ why, they will often be more decent and 
orderly and kind and upright and hon- 
ourable than their neighbours around 
them. 

There are natural principles in the 
constitution of man which secure a cer- 
tain measure of all these virtues in 
many individuals of the race; but as to 
that obedience which no other strength 
but the might conferred by the. Spirit 
on the inner man can accomplish—the 
obedience of the heart—the obedience 
of love to God—the obedience of self- 
devotion and self-denial—the obedience 
of not being conformed to the world, 
and the setting our every affection on 
the things which are above—the obedi- 
ence to which the constraining love of 
Christ can alone prompt us, and which 
the grace of Christ can alone enable us 
to yield, even that of living no longer to 
ourselves, but to Him who died for us, 
and who rose again—why, my brethren, 
this is an obedience which with all their 
decencies and proprieties, they never 
think of aspiring after—this is an 
obedience, the very attempt at which 





é 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY. 


503 


many vould deride as fanatical and 
visionary and enthusiastic. This is an 
obedience which the first class put away 
from them; for, occupied as they are 
with the single sentiment of dependence 
on the righteousness of Christ, they are 
for no personal obedience of their own 
at all. And this is an obedience which 
the second class equally put away from 
them, for there is a something else at 
which they stop short and with which 
they rest satisfied—even that humble 
measure of decency and propriety and 
social virtue and civil accomplishment 
which any man of any fortune and good 
education can attain, though he never 
apply for the strengthening influence of 
the Spirit, nor pray in the name of 
Christ, nor avail himself of that peculiar 
provision which the Gospel has institut- 
ed for redeeming us from all iniquity, 
and purifying us unto the Son of God 
a peculiar people zealous of good works. 
With both the one and the other of 
these classes, there is a something which 
stands in the way of their vigorously 
pursuing that line of new and spiritual 
obedience which every honest Christian 
aims sincerely to make progress in. 
With the first, it is the sentiment that 
Christ has already wrought out a right 
eousness for them—and it is true tha! 
He has wrought out a righteousness for 
them who believe; but how can they 
be said to believe if they put not fata 
in all His sayings, and if one of the 
most solemn and authoritative of tnese 
sayings, “ Without holiness no mau shais 
see God,” has no impression upun them. 
With the second class, it is the seutiment 
that no more obedience can be exacted 
from me than that whieh [| can yield ; 
and thus while Paul says our salvation 
must be altogether of works or alto- 
gether of grace, toey cke out what is 
wanting in the one oy what they have 
done in the other, and as there is no 
saying with huw small a portion of each 
they will satisfy themselves, their obe- 
dience will be no more than the strength 
f nature can yield—that nature which 
the Bible tells us is corrupt and alie- 
nated from God. 


» 
III. But it is not enough that you 
receive Christ for the single object of 
forgiveness, or as a priest who has 


504 


wrought out an atonement for you; for 
Christ offers himself in more capacities 
than this one, and you do not receive 
Him truly unless you receive Him just 
as he offers Himself. Again, it is not 
enough that you receive Christ only as 
a priest and a prophet; for all that He 
teaches will be to you a dead letter un- 
less you are qualified to understand and 
to obey it; and if you think that you 
are qualified by nature, you in fact re- 
fuse His teaching at the very time that 
you profess Him to be your teacher, for 
He says, “Without me ye can do 
nothing.” You must receive Him for 
strength as well as for forgiveness and 
direction; or, in other words, you must 
submit to Him as your King, not merely 
to rule over you by His law, but to rule 
in you by His Spirit. You must live 
in constant dependence on the influences 
of His grace, and if you do so, you never 
will stop short at any one point of obedi- 
ence, but knowing that the grace of God 
is all-powerful, you will suffer no difficul- 
ties to stop your progress ; you will suffer 
no paltry limit of what unaided human 
nature can do, to bound your ambition 
after the glories of a purer and a better 
character than any earthly principle can 
accomplish ; you will enter a career, of 
which you at this moment see not the 
end; you will try an ascent of which 
the lofty eminence is hid in the darkness 
of futurity ; the chilling sentiment that 
no higher obedience is expected of you, 
than of yourself you can yield, will have 
no influence upon you, for the mighty 
stretch of attamment that you look for- 
ward to, is not what you can do, but 
what Christ can do in you; and with 
the all-subduing instrument of His 
grace to help you through every diffi- 
culty, and to carry you in triumph over 
every opposition, you will press forward 
conquering and to conquer; and while 
the world knoweth not the power of 
those great and animating hopes which 
sustain you, you will be makiny daily 
progress in a field of discipline and ac- 
quirement which they have never en- 
tered ; and in patience and forgiveness, 
and gentleness and charity, and the love 
of God and the love of your neighhour— 
which is like unto the love of God, you 
will prove that a work of grace is going 
on in your hearts, even that work by 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY. 


[SERM. 


which the image you lost at the fall is 
repaired and brought back again—the 
empire of sin within you is overthrown 
—the subjection of your hearts to what 
is visible and earthly is exchanged for 
the power of the unseen world over its 
every affection—and you are filled with 
such a faith, and such a love, and such 
a superiority to perishable things, as 
will shed a glory over the whole of your 
daily walk, and give to every one of 
your doings the high character of a can- 
didate for eternity. 

Christ is offered to all of you for for- 
giveness. The man who takes Him for 
this single object must be looking at 
Him with an eye half-shut upon the 
revelation He makes of Himself. Look 
at Him with an open and a steadfast 
eye, and then I will call you a true be- 
liever; and sure I am, that if you do 
so, you cannot avoid seeing Him in the 
earnestness of His desire that you should 
give up all sin, and enter from this mo- 
ment into all obedience. True, and 
most true, my brethren, that faith will 
save you; but it must be a whole faith 
in a whole Bible. True, and most true, 
that they who keep the commandments 
of Jesus shall enter into life; but you 
are not to shrmk from:any one of these 
commandments, or to say, because they 
are so much above the power of human- 
ity, that you must give up the task of 
attempting them. ‘True, and most true, 
that he who trusteth to his obedience as 
a Saviour, is shifting his confidence from 
the alone foundation it can rest upon. 
Christ is your Saviour; and when I call 
upon you to rejoice in that reconciliation 
which is through Him, I call upon you 
not to leave Him for a single moment, 
when you engage in the work of doing 
those things which, if left undone, will 
exclude us from the kingdom of heaven. 
Take Him along with you into all your 
services... Let this sentiment ever be 
upon you,—What I am now doing I 
may do in my own strength to the sat- 
isfaction of man; but I must have the 
power of Christ resting upon the per- 
formance, if I wish to do it in the way 
that is acceptable to God. Let this be 
your habitual sentiment, and then the 
supposed opposition between faith and 
works vanishes into nothing. The life 
of a believer is made up of good works ; 


XVI] 


and faith is the animating and the pow- 
er-working principle of every one of 
them. The spirit of Christ actuates and 
sustains the whole course of your obedi- 
ence. You walk not away from Him, 
but, in the language of the text, you 
“walk in him;” and as there is not one 
of your doings in which He does not 
feel a concern, and prescribe for you a 
duty, so there is not one of them in 
which His grace is not in readiness to 
put the right principle into your heart, 
and to bring it out into your conduct, 
and to make your walk accord with your 
profession, so as to let the world see 
upon you without, the power and the 
efficacy of the sentiment within; and 
thus, while Christ has the whole merit 
of your forgiveness, he has also the 
whole merit of your sanctification ; and 
the humble and deeply-felt consciousness 
of “ Nevertheless not me, but the grace 
of God that is in me,” restores to Jesus 
Christ all the credit and all the glory 
which belong to Him, by making Him 
your only, and your perfect, and your 
entire, and your altogether Saviour. 
Choose Him, then, my brethren, 
choose Him as the Captain of your sal- 
vation. Let him enter into your hearts 
by faith, and let him dwell continually 
there. Cultivate a daily intercourse 
and a growing acquaintance with Him. 
O, you are in safe company, indeed. 
when your fellowship is with Him? 
The shield of His protecting mediator- 


ship is ever between you and the justice | 


of God; and out of His fulness there 
goeth a constant stream, to nourish, and 
to animate, and to strengthen every be- 
liever. Why should the shifting of 
human instruments so oppress and so 
discourage you, when He is your will- 
ing friend; when He is ever present, 
and is at all times in readiness; when 
He, the same to-day, yesterday, and 
64 


FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY. 





505 


forever, 1s to be met with in every place; 
and while His disciples here, giving 
way to the power of sight, are sorrow- 
ful, and in great heaviness, because 
they are to move at a distance from 
one another, He, my brethren, has His 
eye upon all neighbourhoods and all 
countries, and will at length gather His 
disciples into one eternal family ? With 
such a Master let us quit ourselves like 
men. With the magnificence of eter- 
nity before us, let time, with all its fluc- 
tuations, dwindle into its own littleness. 
If God is pleased to spare me, [ trust I 
shall often meet with you in person, 
even on this side of the grave; but if 
not, let us often meet in prayer at the 
mercy-seat of God. While we occupy 
different places on earth, let our mutual 
intercessions for each other go to one 
place in heaven. let the Saviour put 
our supplications into one censer; and 
be assured, my brethren, that after the 
dear and much-loved scenery of this 
peaceful vale has disappeared from my 
eye, the people who live in it shall re- 
tain a warm and an ever-during place 
in my memory ;—and this mortal body 
must be stretched on the bed of death, 
ere the heart which now animates it 
can resign its exercise of longing after 
you, and praying for you, that you may 
so receive Christ Jesus, and so walk in 
Him, and so hold fast the things you 
have gotten, and so prove that the 
labour I have had amongst you has not 
been in vain; that when the sound 
of the last trumpet awakens us, those 
eyes which are now bathed in tears 
may open upon a scene of eternal bless- 
edness, and we. my brethren, whom the 
providence of God has withdrawn for a 
little while from one another, may on 
that day be found side by side at the 
right hand of the everlasting throne. 





506 


THE RIGHT FEAR AND THE RIGHT FAITH. 


_SERM 


SERMON XVIL. 
The Right Fear and the Right Faith.* 


‘That he would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might 


serve him without fear.” —Luke 1. 74. 


We have already spoken of that fear 
which has God for its direct and per- 
sonal object, and regarding which the 
Bible appears to exhibit a set of con- 
tradictory passages that we have en- 
deavoured to reconcile. But there is 
another fear distinct from that which 
we entertain towards God as a person, 
though it stands connected with one of 
the fixed and irreversible ordinations of 
His government—even that by which 
the holiness of man in time is made in- 
dispensable to his happiness in eternity. 
This must be admitted by a Christian 
disciple, even after he, by the faith of 
the gospel, has entered into reconcilia- 
tion with God, and so exchanged the 
fear of terror for the fear of reverence. 
There is a host of scriptural testimonies 
to the necessity of holiness, which no 
fair inquirer into the truth as it is in 
Jesus can possibly withstand ; and in- 
deed the very same faith in the general 
veracity of the Bible which leads to the 
assurance of an efficacy in the blood of 
Jesus to deliver from the punishment 
of sin, leads co-ordinately to the assur- 
ance that without deliverance also from 
the power of sin there is no meetness 
for heaven, and can be no entrance into 
the delight or the glory of its everlast- 
ing habitations. Now the fear is lest 
we should fall short of this heaven just 
by falling short of this holiness—a fear 
which remains, and ought to remain 
with you, even after having accepted of 
Christ as your Saviour. “ Let us there- 
fore fear,” says the apostle, “lest a 
promise being left us of entering into 
His rest any of you should seem to 
come short of it.” He states before 





* In September, 1815, a series of sermons was 

reached in the Tron Church, Glasgow, on the text, 
Lake i. 74. One of them, devoted to the drawing out 
of the distinction between the fear of terror and the 
fear of reverence, was moulded afterwards into the form 
in which it is presented in Dr. Chalmers’ Works, ante, 
p. 166. The substance of the succeeding sermon is 
given in the discourse which follows. 





what the grounds were of such an ap- 
prehension. One of them is an evil 
heart—“ Take heed, brethren, lest there 
be in any of you an evil heart of unbe- 
lief in departing from the living God.” 
Another of them is the insidious power 
of sin—* Lest any of you be hardened 
through the deceitfulness of sin.” And 
in support of this very lesson of heed- 
fulness and fear he quotes in another 
place the instances of those who, after 
having performed to all appearance 
their great and initiatory act of reconcil- 
lation with God, fell away, and were 
destroyed of Him. They, he tells us, 
who were baptized unto Moses, and ate 
and drank of that spiritual Rock, that 
was Christ—even with those of them 
who suffered themselves to be overcome 
by temptation, God was not well pleas- 
ed, and overthrew them in the wilder- 
ness. And these things are written for 
our admonition—for in like manner 
still may we be overthrown; “ where- 
fore,” he concludes, “let him that think- 
eth he standeth take heed lest he fall.” 

Now the things which move us, and 
which should move us to fear, are the 
likelihoods of such a fall whereby we 
are surrounded. All nature and expe- 
rience might well minister to our ap- 
prehensions upon this subject. Did we 
but think of our hearts, and of their 
constant and cleaving ungodliness—did 
we look back upon our history, and re- 
flect how little it has been guided by 
the principle, or adorned by the fruits 
of new obedience—did we take account 
of our affections, and of their still abid- 
ing earthliness, so like unto that carnal- 
ity wherewith the Bible has associated 
death—did we even take account of our 
doings, according to which we shall 
either be received or rejected at the 
judgment seat of Christ—did we but 
estimate aright our constitutional facili- 
ties to what is evil, our leaden, our 


XVIL | 


lethargic apathy to what is good—did 
we make sound and true computation 
of the strength of our enemies, the sin- 
ful tempers and passions and ,sensuali- 
ties which are within, meeting at every 
turn their appropriate objects from 
without, and plied. most closely and 
urgently plied on all hands by the im- 
portunities of a besetting world—did 
we only take a just cognizance of these 
things, then by the very prevalence of 
sight and of sense over faith, we, if at 
all in earnest about the matter. must 
feel alarmed by the fearful chances of 
an arrest and an overthrow on that 
course of progressive holiness which is 
the alone way whereby we can make 
good our escape from the horrors of an 
undone eternity. Were we, in the lan- 
guage of Zacharias, wholly delivered 
from the hands of those enemies, then 
might we serve God without fear in 
righteousness and holiness before him 
all the days of our life; but just be- 
cause all our life long we are encom- 
passed by those enemies, the apostle 
Paul tells us to “work out our salva- 
tion with fear and trembling;”’ and 
just because while we sojourn in the 
flesh they do continue to solicit and to 
annoy us, the apostle Peter tells us to 


“ass the time of our sojourning here | 


am fear.” 

Now, it may help us to resolve this 
apparent contrariety if we compare two 
passages in the life of the last men- 
tioned apostle, and from which we shall 
determine, I think, what the fear is 
which we ought to cast away. and what 
the fear which we ought to cherish and 
retain. Peter was, upon one occasion. 
asked by our Saviour to come to Him 
as He walked upon the sea. He obey- 
ed; but no sooner did he venture him- 
self upon the water than his heart gave 
way. He knew that he could not walk 
there in his own strength, and that un- 
less buoyed up by a miraculous power 
he would sink to the bottom and perish. 
Now faith in the miraculous power of 
Him whom he had every reason to trust 
- was the very thing which should have 
supported his intrepidity ; but this faith 
he wanted, and so he was afraid, and 
drew this rebuke upon himself—* O 
thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou 
doubt?” Here Peter sinned in that he 


THE RIGHT FEAR AND THE RIGHT FAITH. 


507 


feared, because his was at this time a 
fear opposed to faith in the power and 
kindness of the Saviour. 

Go now to another passage of his life 
—when he strongly asserted, in the 
hearing of his Master, that he never 
would deny Him—confident that though 
all the rest of the disciples should be 
baffled and give way, he would meet 
the coming temptation like a man, and 
that like a man he would conquer it. 
Now, on what ground did he feel a 
confidence so fearless? Did he calcu- 
late on strength from his Master to 
support him? No! had he rested his 
confidence on this he would not have 
disgraced himself; but he evidently 
spoke in the tone of a man who counted 
on his own strength—of a man con- 


scious that within him there was a 


firmness of principle altogether compe- 
tent of itself for the struggle that was 
approaching. It had been well if, look- 
ing to the power and promise of the 
Saviour, he had felt fearless; but all 
the fearlessness that he felt was on 
looking to himself and to the energy of 
his own purposes—and therefore it was 
that as in the former instance he sinned 
in having feared, so in the present in- 
stance he sinned in having not feared. 
Had he been more distrustful of himself, 
more aware of .he inadequacy of his 
own strength to meet the coming trial 
and to conquer it, he would have feared, 
and feared on the right ground. Had 
this fear clothed him with humility, and 
caused him to transfer his dependence 
from himself unto the Saviour, he would 
have been courageous, and courageous 
on the right ground—and it were a 
confidence that would not have been 
put to shame, for then would he have 
been in the way of the promise—that 
the God who resisteth the proud giveth 
grace unto the humble. 

The history of this apostle after the 
resurrection illustrates the matter still 
more. It is quite palpable that he then 
underwent a great moral transformation, 
and conducted himself with a decision 
and an energy before unknown to him 
—preaching the word with all boldness, 
and, with only one recorded exception, 
doing the whole work of an apostle in 
a way the most firm and unfaltering— 
insomuch that, faithful to his dangerous 


508 
commission, he kept »y :t 7a the face 
of imprisonments and persecutions, and 
at length closed an honourable life by 
the agonies of a painful martyrdom. 
Now, what was it that caused this rev- 
olution? What new and better princi- 
ple was that which seems now to have 
sustained him. Be assured that it con- 
sisted in his now fearing on the right 
ground, and in his having faith on the 
right ground. He feared when and 
where it was proper; and he feared not 
when and where it was proper. When, 
on looking to the trials that beset or 
that awaited him, he measured them 
with his own strength, then he had the 
fear—when he measured them with the 
strength of the Lord Jesus, then he had 
the faith. Im a word, he put no confi- 
dence in himself, knowing that in him- 
self, that is, in his flesh, there dwelt no 
good thing—he put all his confidence 
in the Saviour, knowing that he could 
do all things through Christ streneth- 
ening him. And. so the confidence 
which he expressed after the resurrection 
differed exceedingly from the confidence 
which he felt before it. “Think not,” 
he said, after the achievement of a won- 
drous miracle, “ that by our own power 
or holiness we have done this thing ; it 
is in the name of Christ, and by faith 
in His name, and through the faith 
which is by Him, that we have been 
enabled to do this thing in the presence 
_ of you all.” 

Now, this mixture of fear in reference 
to the weakness of one’s self, and of faith 
in reference to the power and promise 
of Godyboth acting contemporaneously 
together, might appear a mystery in 
your eyes. You may. feel a difficulty 
in conceiving what the posture of the 
mind can be when thus acted upon—or 
how it is that two principles so opposite 
in their nature should exist in the heart 
at the same time, and bear at once upon 
the mechanism ofthe human spirit. At 
first sight it may not be clear to you by 
what sort of moral dynamics, gr by what 
composition of forces it is that the mind, 
when thus under two impulses, betakes 
itself to the one right and determinate 
path. You must admit the great prac- 
tical importance of the question, affect- 
ing as it does the whole habit and his- 
tory of a believer—and you will there- 


THE RIGHT FEAR AND THE RIGHT FAITH. 


[SERM. 


fore excuse us if, in our attempts at ex- 
plicitness, we shall not be disdainful 
even of the very homeliest illustrations. 
Our first illustration is taken from in- 
fancy—when the child makes its first 
attempts to walk. Here the two princi- 
ples are working together at the same 
moment—first. a fearfulness, in virtue. 
of which it will not let go the hold of its. 
nurse’s hand; and secondly, a confi- 
dence, that while keeping its hold firmly 
it will be supported and in safety dur- 
ing its whole adventure across the floor. 
Fear on the one hand, and faith on the 
other, are both in operation, and both 
necessary. Hxtinguish the principle of 
fear altogether, and the child committing 
itself too early to its own strength, will 
inevitably fall. Extinguish the princi- 
ple of faith altogether, and the child 
having no confidence even in the effect- 
ual support held out by the hands of its 
attendant, might never attempt the ex- 
ercise of walking, and so remain in im- 
potency all its days. And thus the 
mingled operation of these two princi- 
ples so far from being that recondite, 
that unpractical thing which people alike 
unobservant of the Bible and of human 
nature regard it to be, is a thing of cur- 
rent and most obvious exemplification 
in the experience. of every family. 
Should our second illustration be now 
deemed utterly superfluous, and perhaps 
even nauseated, as you would the insi- 
pidity of any overdone excess—we must 
still plead the magnitude of the lesson, 
and our urgent feeling of that magni- 
tude. I may be conscious of inability 
to swim across a river, and nevertheless 
commit myself fearlessly to its waters, 
should a rope be handed out to me from 
the vessel that is passing overit. Here, 
too, we have the joint operation of both 
principles:—Fear in reference to my own 
power of selfsupport restrains me from 
letting go my hold—faith in the strength 
and tightness of the rope, gives me a 
feeling of perfect security while I retain 
my hold. Both principles, however op- 
posite in their nature, incline me to the 
one thing of keeping firmly and con- 
stantly by the rope. Were I confident 
that [ had no need of it, I might fling 
it indignantly away from me, and should . 
my confidence be presumption, I might 
sink to the bottom and perish. But I 


Xvi. ] 


fear, and therefore keep by it as my only 
dependence. Were [ fearful of the 
-rope’s strength, and trembled lest when 
T took my hold of it, it should break or 
separate from the vessel, I might refuse 
its aid, and rather keep my hands in the 
exercise of swimming. Give me the 
right fear—that is a fearful sense of my 
own weakness and inability to swim; 
and the right faith—that is a faith in 
the perfect security of the rope which I 
hold by; and these principles, so far 
from contravening each other, do in fact 
conspire to the one result of making me 
cleave with full purpose of heart to that 
only support by which I can be carried 
fearlessly through the river, and brought 
in safety to the other side of it. 

And it is just by such a fear and by 
such a faith that we make our way into 
heaven across the troubled sea of this 
world. These two are not distracting 
forces which draw in opposite ways. 

_ The one verily shuts up into the other. 
It is just when we look abroad upon 
the adverse influences of sense and of 
society, and then bethink ourselves of 
our own utter inadequacy to cope with 
them—it is when admonished by in- 
ward experience of our constant tenden- 
cy to relinquish all dependence and all 
desire towards God—it is the frequent 
obscuration of Him in our own spirits, 
that sublimed although they may have 
somewhat been, in hours of stillness 
and seclusion, to the ethereal brightness 
of the upper regions, yet that ever and 
anon on our return, whether to the 
world’s business or to the world’s com- 
panies, they lapse again into earthliness. 
and grovel there—it is this perpetual 
finding, that however able to maintain 
in conduct those equities of action 
amongst our fellows which belong to 
the virtue of righteousness, yet that we 
utterly and throughout every hour of 
our lives fail in those sanctities of affec- 
tion towards God which constitute the 
virtue of holiness—-these are the experi- 
ences which must at length school 
every honest inquirer into an utter fear- 
- fulness of himself, a distrust, a most 
warrantable and well-founded distrust 
in all the resources of his own strength 
and of his own wisdom. It is this 
often-tried and as often ascertained defi- 
ciency of nature, which reconciles him 


& 


THE RIGHT FEAR AND THE RIGHT FAITH. 


dence on the Lord Jesus. 





509 


to the doctrine of a grace that might 
put strength into nature for the whole 
work and warfare of obedience. Look- 
ing to the impotency of the one, there 
is fear; looking to the sufficiency of 
the other, there is faith. Both are salu- 
tary. In virtue of the first. he has a 
perpetual distrust in himself; in virtue 
of the second, he has a perpetual depen- 
There is no 
conflict between these feelings—they 
work, as it were, to one another’s hands. 
The movement to which they give rise 
is first an export of prayer from the soul 
to heaven’s sanctuary ; and secondly, an 
import of power from heaven’s sanctuary 
into the soul. It is this habitual sense 
of weakness which excites to habitual 
prayer—it is this habitual prayer which 
brings down the habitual supplies of 
strength and of grace for all services. 
The man works mightily because God 
works in him mightily. He realizes 
the great paradox of the Christian life, 
that when he is weak then he is strong ; 
that when deepest in humility he is borne 
most steadfastly upward and onward 
along the heights of an angelic sacred- 
ness. 

These views are in full harmony with 
Scripture; and did we but take along 
with us what that is which we should 
fee] fear about, and again, what that is 
which we should put faith in, we could 
be at no loss to understand either how 
the psalmist could mix trembling with 
his mirth, or how the apostle could be 
always sorrowful yet always rejoicing. 
“When I said, my foot slippeth,” saith 
David, “thy mercy, O Lord, held me 
up.” On looking to one quarter, even 
to that of sense and nature, we might 
well tremble before those adverse influ- 
ences by which the heart of man is 
wholly secularized, and his history be- 
comes that of an earthly, carnal, and 
alienated creature. On looking to the 
other quarter, even to that where the 
fulness of grace is treasured up, and 
whence it issues forth on the praying 
and the watching and the working dis- 
ciple—it might well rejoice in those pre- 
cious influences from heaven by which 
the heart of man is impregnated with 
its own sacredness, and his history be- 
comes that of a prosperous aspirant af- 
ter its glory and immortality and honour 


510 


Could he, without any hold on the sup- 
port that is above him, make his own 
way on the ascent of a progressive holi- 
ness, then he need not tremble; or even 
were it quite natural for him to keep 
that hold at all times, then might he 
persist in a sort of unbroken and undis- 
turbed security of heart, while the temp- 
tations of life play idly around him. 
But, in point of truth, there is a con- 
stant aptitude to let go the hold, and 
every intelligent Christian is conscious 
thereof, and so he is kept, and that per- 
petually, on the alert and the alarm— 
fearful, on the one hand that he should 
quit his dependence, and confident, on 
the other, that so long as he retains it 
he is safe. You can imagine the light 
and evidence wherewith the sacred vol- 
ume stands forth to the eye of a believ- 
er, when made to observe how precisely 
the descriptions of the Bible accord with 
all the developments of an experience 
so very peculiar. When called upon to 
fear—as in the first verse of the fourth 
chapter of the Hebrews—lest he should 
come short of the promised rest, he 
knows well what that is which should 
make him afraid. But this very fear, 
founded on a distrust of his own powers, 
shuts him up unto another dependence— 
and when called upon in the last verse 
of the same chapter, to come boldly to 
the throne of grace, that he may find 
grace to help him in the time of need, 
he knows well what that is which should 
make him courageous. 

This delicate alternation between the 
two feelings, so often adverted: to in the 
Bible, and so accurately reflected in the 
personal history of a believer, affords 
that very correspondence between the 
tablet of human nature on the one 
hand, and the tablet of revelation on 
the other, which warrants a still more 
intimate conviction than before of God 
being the common author or architect 
of both. Meanwhile, too, he practises 
the lesson of serving God both without 
fear and with fear—without fear on the 
calculation that he makes of God’s 
promises—with fear on the calculation 
he makes of his own powers. The 
sense of his own helplessness will make 
him fearful of depending upon it. The 
sense of God’s truth in the promises 
will make him faithful in depending 


THE RIGHT FEAR AND THE RIGHT FAITH. 


[ SERM. 


upon it. The faith and the fear are 
embodied by him into one act of obe- 
dience, even as within the limits of a 
single verse they have been embodied 
by the apostle into one precept. He 
tells the Gentiles not to boast them- 
selves against the children of Israel ;— 
and why? because it was by faith only 
that they stood—* And be not there- 
fore,” he says, “ high-minded, but fear.” 
Here, and within the compass of one 


utterance, the right fear and the right 


faith are both contemporaneously press- 
ed upon them. The right fear would 
keep them from boasting, allied as it 
was with the sentiment that although 
they stood it was by no power or holi- 
ness of their own. The right faith 
would direct their eye to that fountain 
of grace which was above them, and 
whence thy drew those supplies of light 
and of strength, which from the unbe- 
lieving Jews had been withholden, and 
as they looked to that God who alone 
made them to differ, they would not be 
high-minded. 

But the most complete scriptural 
illustration of this doctrine which can 
be given, is from that celebrated pas- 
sage where the apostle tells his converts 
to work out their own salvation with 
fear and trembling, because it is God 
that worketh in them both to will and 
to do of His good pleasure. It is con- 
ceivable how a man should both will 
aright and work aright in virtue of an 
influence from heaven, and how, to ob- 
tain this influence, a prayer should arise 
from the heart, and a power should 
come down both upon the heart and 
upon the hand for all the services of a 
vigorous and an active obedience. But 
why should there be a fear or trem- 
bling in this process? The fear is lest 
among the besetting urgencies of sense 
and of nature, we should be tempted to 
forget God, and so He should withdraw 
His helping hand from us. The fear is 
lest, in the confidence of nature, we 
should go forth against the adverse in- 
fluences by which we are surrounded, 
and so be overcome. The fear is lest 
we should lose our hold of God, and so 
He, quitting His hold of us, and aban- 
doning us to our own unaided impo- 
tency, should leave us to the disgrace 
anc. the ruin of a fatal overthrow. The 


Xvi. } 


fear is lest, not praying as we ought, 
we should be deprived of the needful 
element for right and acceptable per- 
formance; and, most important of all, 
the fear is lest, not performing as we 
ought, we should provoke God to with- 
hold His answers of grace and of gra- 
ciousness from our prayers. It is this 
last which harmonizes man’s utmost 
activity with man’s utmost dependence. 
This is the state of it: he does all that 
he can with the strength which he now 
has. and he looks to God for that 
strenoth being kept up and extended. 
He knows that if he do not work up to 
the power which is at present in him. 
that power will not be added to, and 
what is more, that even such as it is, it 
may be withdrawn. He knows that if 
he do not trade with all diligence on 
the actual stock of grace, this stock 
will be actually diminished. Whatever, 
therefore, in the way of duty or of serv- 
ice, his hand findeth to do he doeth it 
with all his existing might, lest deserted 
in wrath by the sustaining might of 
(od, he should not only be arrested in 
his progress towards the strength and 
the stature of a more advanced Chris- 
tianity, but should decline into the utter 
impotency of one who is altogether 
without grace and without godliness. 
It is precisely because God worketh in 


him to will and to do of his good pleas-. 


ure, that he fears lest that good pleasure 
should be forfeited in the time that is to 
come by his careless and remiss improve- 
ment of all which it has done for him 
in the time that now is. The precise 
reason why so strenuous and so busy 
and so much on the alert in stirring up 
and putting to its practical use the gift 
that is in him, is, that if he do not he 
will receive no more gifts, and what he 
has will be taken away. 

A more plain and also more power- 
. ful incitement to all diligence, and that 
throughout every single instant of his 
course, cannot well be conceived than 
that if he do not at this instant work 
to the uttermost of that ability where- 
with the Spirit has now invested him, 
the Spirit will be grieved, and may, on 
the very next instant, abandon him to 
his own unsupported feebleness. The 
relation between the hand that works 
and the hand by which it is strength- 


THE RIGHT FEAR AND THE RIGHT FAITH. 


511 


ened, furnishes the very strongest, and 
at the same time most intelligible mo- 
tive to steady, faithful, and enduring 
obedience. The man works out his 
salvation upon the strength of what 
God has wrought into him; and he 
does it with fear and trembling, just 
because most fearfully and tremblingly 
alive to the thought, that if he does not, 
God may cease working in him to will 
any more or to do any more. The 
doctrine of grace, thus understood, so 
far from acting as an extinguisher upon 
human activity, is in truth the very 
best excitement to it. This dependence 
between the busy exercise of all your — 
present graces and the supply of new, 
is the fittest possible tenure on the part 
of God whereby to hold man to his 
most constant, most careful, most vigi- 
lant obedience. It is felt that the only 
way of obtaining enlargement and 
vigour for future services, is to acquit 
one’s self to the uttermost of his pres- 
ent strength of all his present services ; 
and that thus, and thus alone, he can 
step by step work his ascending way to 
a higher and a higher status in practi- 
cal Christianity. We are aware of the 
reproach that has been cast on the doc- 
trine of the Spirit’s influences; but we 
trust it will be seen from these views. 
however imperfectly given, that he who 
labours in all the present might given, 
and looks for more, instead of living in 
the mystic state of an indolent and ex- 
pectant quietism, he of all other men iz 
the most awake to every call of duty— 
the most painstaking an@ arduous in 
every performance of it. 

There is nothing in that mercy which 
descends upon us from heaven to super- 
sede the activities of men upon earth. 
Instead of superseding, its very desigr 
is to stimulate these activities. When 
it works in us, its precise outgoing is 
just toset us working. Had it operated 
by an outward or physical constraint 
upon the hand, then might it only have 
worked on us to do. But it operates 
on the inner man, and so as to gain the 
consent of the heart; and accordingly 
works in us both to will and todo. It 
acts in truth by the influence of moral 
suasion, and addresses itself to the vari- 
ous parts and principles of our moral 
nature. The man instead of being 


512 SPIRITUAL 
driven by a force from without, is really 
and in substance under the government 
of his own feelings—but these are feel- 
ings capable it would appear of being 
refined and elevated by the influence of 
that supreme virtue which is above us, 
even as we experimentally know that 
they are capable of being refined and 
elevated by the influence of that social 
virtue which beams upon us from the 
companionship of a good and well-prin- 
cipled society around us. Atall events, 
the thing is misunderstood if you con- 
ceive of him who has been quickened 
into action by a touch from the upper 
sanctuary, that he is therefore set aside 
from the exertion of his own powers, 
and the guidance or the control of his 
own purposes. ‘The visitation, in fact, 
is upon the inward powers and sensibil- 
ities, not of a dead but of a living 
mechanism, and the effect of it is not 
to overbear any of the proper functions 
of the man, but to set all his powers 
and purposes and inward principles in 
action. Accordingly, in our text, the 
effect of God’s having visited and re- 


IDOLATRY. 


[ SERM. 


deemed His people, is that His people 
serve Him.. Upholden though they be 
and led although they be by the hance 
stretched forth to meet them from hea 
ven, itis a hand not of impulse upon 
matter but of application to mind, and 
which acts on that mind in sweetest 
unison with all its faculties, insomuch 
that these children of grace, instead of 
idly waiting in the anticipation of what 
is to come, are most strenuously and 
laboriously working under the ascend- — 
ency of a moral force that is present, 
and which bears upon the heart as well 
as on the hand. We deceive ourselves 
then if we think that under the econo- 
my of the Gospel we are exempted from 
the assiduities of service; and although 
we shall never move aright unless 
breathed upon by an influence from 
above, yet he only has indeed partaken 
of that influence who, in practical def- 
erence to the authority of God as hia 
Master, holds forth in the history of his 
life the aspect of a willing and a doing 
and a stirring and a pains-taking obe- 
dience. 


SERMON XVIII. 


Spiritual Idolatry.* 


‘‘ Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the 
unclean thing ; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my 
sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”—2 CorinrHians vi. 17, 18. 

e 


You will observe that Paul in these | hension was that he would again lose 


verses is addressing a number of pro- 
fessed Christians, who were surrounded 
with the allurements cf idolatry. There 
was a power of temptation in these al- 
lurements greater than they have ever 
thought of to whom the profligacies of 
the. pagan worship are unknown ; but 
the apostle, whose converts lived in the 
midst of them, was aware of the con- 
stant vigilance they would have to main- 
tain among the constant opportunities 
and: solicitations which beset them in 
every quarter. _He watched over them 
with a godly jealousy. He feared for 
them even to painfulness. 


eg nee TS 


* Preached at Glasgow, October 29, 1815. 





them; and, aware of the danger that lay 
even in their most distant approaches to 
the objects of that enticing ritual, he 
insists on a clean and total separation. 


'It is under a feeling of the hazard to 


which they were exposed that he calls 
upon them, in a former epistle, to beware 
of security: “ Let him that thinketh he 
standeth, take heed lest he fall.” It is 
with a reference to the very same sub- 
ject that he calls upon them to beware 


| also of a despairing sense of helplessness, 
,under the force of these surrounding 
| temptations. 
His appre-| faithfulness of God. 


He commits them to the 
“There hath no 
temptation taken you but such as is com- 
mon.to men; but God is faithful, who 


Xvutt. } SPIRITUAL 
will not suffer you to be tempted above 
that you are able; but will with the 
temptation also make a way to escape, 
that ye may be able to bear it.” And 
having thus put them into the right atti- 
tude for resisting temptation, or, in other 
words, having on the one hand given 
them the right fear, that is, a fear of 
themselves, in virtue of which they | 
would take heed—and the right faith, 
that is, faith in God, in virtue of which 
they would receive the fulfilment of His 
promises—he makes the whole to bear 
on the great practical object that he had 
in his eye, and proves the deep impres- 
sion of his mind on the subject of idol- 
atry and of its dangers, when, after fur- 
nishing them with the right answer, 
and putting them into the right attitude 
of resistance, he winds up the whole ar- 
gument by saying, Wherefore, my dearly 
beloved, flee from idolatry. 

But how can such a lesson as this be 
made to bear upon the professing Chris- 
tians of the presentday? Just by mak- 
ing idolatry what, spiritually and sub- 
stantially speaking, it really is, giving 
the desires of the heart to any one object 
which can seduce it from the love of | 
God. Ifany one thing be more loved 
than He, that one thing is an idol. 
The heart which followeth after its un- 
cleanness is engaged in the worship 
of an idol. The man whose heart is in 
his wealth, and not in the living God, is 
virtually as much an idolater, as if he 
made an image of his gold, and fell down 
on his knees to an idol. The man of 
the present day, who, the slave of ungov- 
ernable desire, indulges in the abomi- 
nations of licentiousness, ranks, in the 
spiritual estimation of Heaven; with the 
bacchanalian of old, who personified 
pleasure, and made an image with his 
hands to represent the image of his 
fancy, and shared in all the mysteries 
which were thrown around the service 
of the idol. Even the good-humoured 
and convivial man, whose ruling enjoy- 
ment is his table, and whom the world 
can charge with no other species of prof- 
ligacy—had he been one of Paul’s con- 
verts, Paul would have wept over him, 
and charged him with making a god of 
his enjoyment, and the mind of the holy 
apostle would have felt his apostasy even 
to the bitterness of tears, and have told 

65 








IDOLATRY. 518 
it even weeping that he had become 
an enemy of the Cross of Christ, and 
had relapsed from the, worship of the one 
God to the worship of an idol. Ye 
purer and gentler of our kind, who love 
to surround yourselves with all the ele- 
gancies which wealth can purchase, I 
will not say, when I enter your apart- 
ments and survey the tastefulness and 
the splendour which adorn them, that 
you have done that which is unlawful, 
but I think that, had Paul looked at 
the costly exhibition, he would have 
said, with all the delicacy and discern- 
ment which belonged to him, that 
though all things be lawful, yetall things 
are not expedient; and if the desire of 
the eye, or the pride of life, which are 
opposite to the love of the Father, be 
the ruling principle within you, then in 
every act of extravagance at the shrine 
of fashion do I recognize an offering of 
idolatry—an act of graceful adoration 
before the painted magnificence and the 
high-wrought drapery of an idol. But 
the work of illustration is endless. 
Every one creature that is more loved 
than the Creator is an idol. I=f any one 
thing which He has formed occupy the 
place in our hearts which belongs to 
Him who formed all things, that one 
thing is an idol. Oh! how widely does 
such a principle as this spread around 
the charge of rebellion among all the 
classes and characters of society. How 
broadly it stamps upon the face of the 
world the legible expression of a world 
lying in wickedness. When we see 
every man giving himself.up to his own 
peculiar idolatry, how it realizes the de- 
scription of the prophet, that we have 
turned every one to his own way; and 
surely, when, under all the vanities of 
selfish indulgence—from all the gross- 
ness of profligacy to all the elegance of 
refinement, we can detect the one. and 
the universal tendency of forgetfulness 
of God, we cannot fail to acknowledge 
that the world of sense which is around 
us is one mighty theatre of idolatry ; 
that on every side of us idols meet us 
and ply us with their temptations; that 
they have stolen our affections from 
God as entirely as the idols of Corinth 
seduced the worshippers of that aban- 
doned city from the true God of heaven 
and of earth; and that, therefore, the 


514 SPIRITUAL 
call of the apostle is unto us as well as 
unto them, when he tells us of God 
claiming the honour that is due unto 
His name, and recalling His wandering 
creatures to their allegiance, and bid- 
ding them give up their idols, saying, 
“Come out from among them, and be 
ye separate, and touch not the unclean 
thing, and I will receive you, saith the 
Lord.” 

Let me take each of these clauses in 
the order in which they stand, and en- 
deavour practically to apply them to the 
men of the present day. 

“Come out from among them.”—A 
plain enough direction, if you conceive 
aman standing in one of the temples 
of idolatry. It is just tellmg him to 
turn his back upon the idols, and to 
walk away from them; but if you take 
in the next clause of the apostle’s ad- 
vice, “be ye separate,’ you connect 
with the act of leaving these idols the 
purpose of never returning to them. 
My object in going away is to keep 
away. With the individual act of the 
time that is present there is also the 
general determination, which, if per- 
sisted in, carries an authority over my 
conduct in all time coming. Obedience 
to the direction, “ Come out from among 
them,” may be performed by a man 
who, though he forbears one act of 
idolatry, intends no renunciation of the 
habits of idolatry. Obedience to the 
direction of—Come out from among 
them and be ye separate. involves in it 
not merely an act of refusal to join in 
the service of idols, but it makes the 
one act the commencement of a pur- 
posed course. It is by the control of 
the mind over the body that the one 
performance of moving away from an 
idolatrous temple is accomplished; but 
the mind can look forward to futurity, 
and by a present act of volition it can 


IDOLATRY. [SERM. 
may be followed by another, and the 
purpose may gather new strength from 
every new and successful exertion of so- 
vereignty, and it may be getting constant 
additions to its practical ascendency over 
the whole man, and thus from the sug- 
gestion of a single moment there may 
arise, as from a starting-point. an ema- 
‘nating influence which gives a new di- 
rection to his doings, and imparts a new 
colour to the whole train of his history. 
| This gives an importance to the busi- 
ness of the pulpit which, to him who 
fills it, is enough to humble and to 
overwhelm him. The thousand indi- 
viduals he stands among. if they remain 
| what nature made them. have turned 
every one of them to his own way. and 
each is in full pursuit of his own fan- 
cied idolatry. Oh! how shall he shape 
the suggestion that is to bear with 
effect on all or on any of them; that is, 
to arrest the currency of nature. and to 
turn these wanderers unto God. Oh! 
there is an obstinacy. of corruption 
amongst us which mocks the impo- 
'tency of human arguments; a spell in 
the enchantments of sense and of time 
| which no charm of eloquence can dis- 
solve; a tyranny in the idols of the 
world against which all the demonstra< 
tions of wisdom and all the entreaties 
| of human tenderness have no more 
effect than the lispings of infancy. A 
minister has no ground to hope for 
fruit from his exertions until in himself 
he has no hope; until he has learned 
to put no faith in the point and energy 
| of sentences; until he feel that a man 
| may be mighty to compel the attention, 
and mighty to regale the imagination, 
and mighty to silence the gainsayers, 
and yet not mighty to the pulling down 
of strongholds. Oh! there is a power 
,of resistance in the alienated children 
|of this world which is beyond every 





exert a control over the movements of | power that accomplished or educated 
futurity. A purpose may be suggested | nature can bring to: bear upon it; and 
in a moment; it may be deliberated | it is not till he throw himself in hum- 
upon and formed in less than an hour. | ble dependence on hits great Master, 
It may be so matured by the power of | who alone can subdue all things unto 
reflection sitting in authority over the , Himself, that he need expect to be the 
great questions of duty and interest, as | honoured instrument of breaking down 
to obtain a vested and decisive estab- | the infatuation which chains every bro- 


lishment over the mind in a single day. 
In another day it may compel the outer 
man to an act of obedience, and this 


ther of the species in the most helpless 
and degrading idolatry. 
But to give these two clauses of 





xvut.} 


“Come out from among them,’ and 
“be ye separate,” their general appli- 
eation, I would observe, in the first 
place, that the renunciation you are 
called upon to perform is not of this one 
or of that other idol, but of all idols. It 
is to come out from among them. There 
is not one of them in the service of 
which you do not trespass on some of 
the commandments; and there is not 
one of them the love of which does not 
depose God from that supremacy over 
your affections which belongs to Him. 
There is no man living who realizes 
every species of wickedness in his con- 
duct, or who enthrones every idol se- 
ducing him to wickedness in his heart. 
-You may not serve many gods; but if 
you serve one god, and he be not the 
true God of heaven and of earth, to Him 
you are a rebel, and the full guilt of re- 
bellion lies upon you. Many a gener- 
ous-hearted youth would not make a 
sacrifice of integrity to the idol wealth; 
ay, but he may make an idol of plea- 
sure. Many an elegant scholar would 
not debase himself by an act of intoxi- 
cation ;* ay, but he may make an idol 
of fame. Many a lover of quietness 
would not envy the success of another’s 
‘ambition; ay, but he may make an 
idol of ease. Each may think his own 
taste the most respectable, and give the 
preference to his own idol, but I come 
in upon them with a claim that sets 
aside all, and is paramount to all. I 
bring the demands of another Master to 
the door of every one of them. [ tell 
them that it is quite in vain to be run- 
ning each in complacency on his own 
way, and thinking that he is so much 
safer and so much better than his 
neighbours around him. It is precise- 
ly because it is his own way that he is 
wrong. It is a way to which he turns 
not by the authority of God, but by the 
desire of his own heart. It may be 
called a purer, or a more refined, or a 
more honourable way, but still, if God 
have no concern in it, what put him in 
that way but some affection of his own ? 
and that affection being not towards 
God, is towards an idol. It is just be- 
cause we have turned every man to his 
own way, that God looks upon us as 
wandering from Him, and that before 
He could recall us back again He had 


SPIRITUAL IDOLATRY. 


515 
to clear the access between sinners and 
Himself, by laying upon Christ the 
iniquities of us all. Oh,no! my breth- 
ren, you may have several idols, and 
give up the service of one of them, but 
that is not enough; or you may leave 
one and take to another, but that will 
not do either. The God who made you 
and keeps you can put His hand upon 
every one of you, and say that you are 
mine, and whatever you do must be 
done by my will and to my service. I 
lay upon you the obligation of doing all 
things to Him, and ere you can be 
ready to fulfil this obligation, you must 
come out from all idols, and be separate 
from all. 

And, again, what is that posture of 
the mind which is implied in its being 
separate from idols? It is by nature 
the subject of many desires, and there 
is surely no difficulty in conceiving 
what it is to follow out these desires. 
There is a bent of the mind which all 
of us have the familiar experience of, 
and it is every day exemplified by those 
thousands and thousands more who 
crowd the broad way which leadeth to 
destruction. It is a matter of constant 
observation how a desire springs in the 
heart; how, to obtain its accomplish- 
ment, a purpose is conceived; how, to 
execute the purpose, a deed is performed 
or a line of conduct is prosecuted; and 
how, throughout every step of this oftea- 
repeated process, God is not thought of, 
and His will is admitted to no share in 
the deliberations of the inner man, and 
to no influence upon the visible doings 
of the outer man. Such a man is 
wholly given over to the service of 
idols; he walketh after the counsel of 
his own heart and in the sight of his 
own eyes; he cares not for the bidding 
of God, and he seeks not to know what 
that bidding is; he just acts as if there 
were no God, or as if God had no will 
about any of his doings, or as if the ex- 
pression of that will had never been re- 
vealed to him. Surely, it may well be 
said of such a man that he has broken 
loose from God; that he is astray and 
at a distance from Him; that he has 
fled from his lawful Master, and attach- 
ed himself to the service of idols; and 
be it vanity or covetousness, or the love 
of pleasure, or ambition, or, if free from 


51E SPIRITUAL 
the domineering violence of any one 
passion, which many an _ every-day 
character is, be it merely a calm gen- 
eral attachment to the creature and to 
the world; be it one, or several, or all 
of these which form the principles of 
his constitution—still they are only the 
different names of so many idols; and 
though the service of each of them im- 
parts its own peculiar complexion to its 
own worshippers, they have all gone 
out of the way; there is none seeketh 
after God ; they are idolaters, and have 
every one of them turned aside to idola- 
try. 

Now let conscience waken within 
sucha man. Let it put the authority 
of God before him as a rightful autho- 
rity ; let it tell him “It is not your de- 
sire, but the will of God that you should 
follow ;” let it reveal to him the law, 
with all its high claims and all its un- 
alterable sanctions; and conceive the 
effect of all this to be, that when the 
wonted desire springs up in his heart, 
and to which in time past he gave an 
unresisting obedience, there should now 
“spring up along with it a something 
which keeps it in check, and which will 
not rest till it subordinates the desire to 
the requirement of God: here is a man 
separating from an idol—going over 
from the wrong to the right service, and, 
if you conceive that the new principle 
works upon him in all its universality, 
aims to subordinate not one desire of 
the heart, but all the desires of it; meets 
every wish and every affection with the 
question, But what is the will of God 
in this matter? urges him with the con- 
sideration that, whatever that will be, it 
ought to be followed ; brings the impres- 
sive sense of duty and interest to bear 
upon every case on hand, and thus sets 
him to struggle it not merely with one 
idol, but with all idols: here is a man 
separating from them; here is a man 
working at the direction of the text, if 
he has not yet fulfilled it, of “be ye 
separate ;” here is a man under the gen- 
eral conviction that his face has been 
hitherto turned the wrong way, and that 
now he must turn him to God; here is 
a man feeling that he ought to be, and 
conscious that such he has not hitherto 
been ; here isaman looking towards God, 
and aspiring after the general object of 


IDOLATRY. [SERM. 
being what God would have him to be; 
here is a man before the eye of whose 
mind there stands presented the will of 
God as opposed not to this one and to 


that other transgression, but as opposed - 


to the whole array of his former desires, 
and pursuits, and affections; here is a 
man now actuated by a desire after the 


single, but most comprehensive object ~ 


of conformity to this will; here is a 
man filled with a longing after the one 
service of God, and a clean and total 
separation from every other. Whether 
he has yet obtained that which he longs 
after, and how he is to accomplish the 
work of an entire separation, are other 
questions; but, at all events, here is a 
man in the incipient attitude of obedience 
to the direction of my text—an attitude 
into which he may put himself the mo- 


ment that it is listened to and understood - 


by him; and if he has not yet ae- 
complished a separation from idols, he 
is at least in a state of honest readiness 
for doing all that may be right or neces- 
sary to accomplish it. 

Now, my brethren, this is the very 
position [ want to put you into. A man 
may refrain his hand from some evil 
performance, and not be in this posture ; 
aman may refrain his tongue from some 
mischievous calumny, and not be in this 
posture; a man may refrain his feet 
from some gay and seductive company, 
and not be in this posture. The mere 
individual act of turning from these 
things may be performed by one who 
has not set himself to the one general 
act of turning unto God. Now we are 
repeatedly told in the Bible to make 
this turn, and there must be some deed 
of obedience by which it is perfermed. 
It is the very deed of obedience which 
I am now pressing upon you. It is not 
made up of many particular acts of 
obedience, but it 1s one act, which, if 
duly rendered, would carry every par- 
ticular act of obedience along with it. 
No multiplication whatever of particular 
acts of obedience will make out the one 
general act of turning unto God. I, 
who want to live in the free indulgence 
of my appetites, may put myself under 
the regimen of a strict temperance, and 
not make it out; I, who want to make 
my own pleasure on the Sabbath day, 
may spend the whole of it in religious 


xvi. | ‘SPIRITUAL 
observances, and not make it out; I, 
who want to catch at unfair advanta- 
ges in business, may become most fear- 
fully and most anxiously scrupulous, and 
not make it out. Oh,no! my brethren, 
turning unto God is not a matter eked 
out and completed by tacking one piece 
of obedience to another. It is one 
movement of the mind, which, if truly 
taken, subordinates the whole man, and 
separates him from all idols, and, put- 


ting him into the posture of a returning | 
allegiance to God, makes him turn his 


You 


back upon every one of them. 


will not gain this posture by any num- | 
-even reached the infancy of its first 


ber whatever of external and positive 
acts of obedience. 
the mind; and it is not till the mind be 


It is an attitude of. 





addressed by the considerations fitted to | 
influence it that it will be put into this | 


attitude. It is not till conscience plies 
me with the rightful authority of God, 


a rebel to Him, whose I am, and by 
whom it is that I have any place at all 


IDOLATRY, 517 
Thy commands upon me, and give me 
wisdom to understand and strength te 
perform them all. 
But understand well, my brethren, 
that though there may be many acts of 
conformity to God’s law which are of 
no account whatever, because not ac- 
companied with a reigning principle of 
allegiance to God’s authority, yet wher- 
ever this allegiance exists it will tell, 
and will tell immediately on the out- 
ward obedience. If I see that you are 
not framing your doings, I say most 
assuredly that allegiance to God is not 
formed, and is not forming, and has not 


moment in your hearts. Oh! there is 
much to be gathered from that complaint 
of the prophet, that they will not frame 
their doings to turn unto the Lord.* 
He had called upon them to turn and 


|to turn, but when he saw that there 
and sets before me the enormity of being , 
he felt that the work of turning was not 


in the creation He has formed, and tells | 


me of the worthlessness of idols, and 
pursues me With the voice of Turn from 
them unto God, and give to Him that 
allegiance which you have so long and 
so sinfully withheld from him—it is not 
till then that I am put into the com- 
manding position of renouncing, in wish 
and in purpose, the creature for the 


was no change of doing among them, 


even begun to. And there is just as 
much to be gathered from the text. It 
presses upon you the general habit, the 
changed attitude of the soul, in virtue 
of which it is separate from idols and 
turned to the true God ; but at the same 
time that it presses this, and even before 
it presses the general habit upon you, it 
lays upon you a specific act; it bids 


you come out from among them ; it 


Creator. A thousand acts of conformity. 
to God’s law will not set me on this posi- 
tion; but place me there, and you give 
me such an aspiring after an entire and > 


unreserved obedience to the whole law 
as will carry in its traina thousand acts 
of conformity, and ten thousand more. 


[I wait to know the will of God, and 


whatever be its requirements, I have 
the honest purpose of rendering obedi- 
ence to each and to all of them. It is 
not by doing this one piece of work, or 


that other piece of work, or any given | 


number of performances, that [ am to 
make out the character or to earn the 
reward of God’s servant, but, in the 
language of the psalmist, I say to Him 
even now, O God, I am thy servant. 
I give up every other master—put me 
to any piece of work Thou art pleased 
to assign me—to this extent do I pro- 
fess, and to this extent it is my earnest 
wish that I should practise—lay all 





does not wait for the slow formation of 
any unseen principle in the inner man, 
ere it urges you toa visible and externa! 
act of obedience on the outer man; it 


does not encourage any delay or any 


parrying in this matter. Oh! there is 


a wonderful freeness and energy in the 


practical addresses of the Bible! It 
does not leave you at a loss for want of 
knowing some clear, distinct, and pal- 
pable thing that you may turn your 
hand to. ‘he idolater who was still 
lmgering in a temple of heathenism, 


_had he been met in person by the apos- 


tle, would have gotten from him an 


' advice of far more comprehensive import 


than that he should not join in the 
pagan services of that day; he would 
have been told to separate himself from 
all idols for all the days of his life; but 
the mighty mind of the apostle, aiming 





* Hosea v. 4. 


¢ 


518 SPIRITUAL 
at the accomplishment of so mighty a 
change in the heart and habits of an 
idolater, would still have found time 
and earnestness for laying upon him a 
specific act, and he would have laid the 
full stress of a practical importance on 
the one, individual, and immediate per- 
formance of leaving the temple in which 
he was now standing, and, without any 
squeamish, and slavish, and theorizing 
scrupulosity about the order of his di- 
rections, would he have said to him, in 
the words of the text, Go out from among 
them, and be ye separate. 

Now, my brethren, I apply this to 
you and to your idols, and to the acts of 
sin which you perform in their service. 
I call upon you to be separated from 
them all; but I call upon you, also, to 
refrain from the very first act of sin that 
you may have opportunity of perform. 
ing in the service of any one of them. 
Conceive it possible that this were the 
moment of such an act. I would not 
only tell you to separate yourself alto- 
gether from this kind of wickedness, but 
I would tell you to force yourself away, 
and that actually, from the particular 
act of wickedness you were now en- 
gaged in. Were I by the side of a 
young friend who was surrounded by 
dissipated companions, and in the full 
career of intoxication amongst them, [ 
would tell him to separate himself from 
the idol of pleasure; but the office of 
his monitor would be woefully unfin- 
ished did [ not whisper in his ear, and 
that with all the energy of alarm, that 
at this moment he should go out from 
among them. Were he the member of 
some unrighteous combination, a part- 
ner in some extended system of illicit 
merchandise, the companion of a bro- 
therhood who practised their covenant- 
ed acts of dishonesty against the inter- 
ests of the public, I would not Jet him 
off with an exhortation of such feeble 
generality as, Separate thyself from the 
idol of covetousness, but would press it 
upon him that without a moment’s par- 
rying or delay he should withdraw him- 
self from that fellowship of iniquity, and 
go out from amongstithem. Were hea 
worshipper at the shrine of fashion, and 
in that wretched competition of extrav- 
agance which has banished from society 
all the simplicity of kindness; were he 


IDOLATRY. [SERM. — 
to force out a splendour in the eye of his 
neighbour which pressed upon the means 
or the conveniences of his family, I 
would not stop short at telling him to 
separate himself from the idol of vanity, 
but I would urge him, in noble defiance 
to his former associates in expense, and 
to all their paltry insinuations, that at 
this moment he should bid adieu to their 
heartless parade, and come out from 
amongst them. I would not satisfy 
myself with the general direction; [ 
would follow it up with the point of a 
specific requirement; I would bring it 
to the touchstone of an instantaneous 
act of obedience; I would not merely 
say, Be ye separate, but I would also 
say, Come out. An entire separation 
from all idols is the mighty object of a 
Christian’s ambition ; but it is an object 
to which he must move, and if I see no 
one act of breaking off from his idola- 
try, I have a right to say of him that he 
has not moved a single footstep in the 
way of obedience. One act of with- 
drawment may be performed by him 
who falls short of the habit of separa- 
tion, but the habit of separation will 
never be reached by him who. performs 
no act of withdrawment. Oh, no! my 
brethren; you may amuse yourselves 
ll your days with the distant contem- 
plation of the full stature and graceful 
accomplishments of the perfect man in 
Christ Jesus, but it is only by growing 
up unto Him that you will ever reach 
it; by moving from one degree of grace 
unto another; by an actual commence- 
ment of the course, and a steady perse- 
verance in it. If I have not got you to 
cease from one act of homage to an 
idol, I have done nothing. If I have 
not prevailed upon you to resolve against 
the very next occasion of sin, I have 
given all my earnestness to the winds. 
If I have only wrought in you the con- 
viction that it is your duty to separate 
from idols, but have not wrought in you 
the purpose to come out from among 
them, ay, and that immediately, I feel 
amongst you all the humiliation of a de- 
feat—I am baffled in my attack upon 
the power of darkness within you. The 
lifting up of my voice has not awakened 
you from the deep spirit of slumber, nor 
has the word of exhortation which I 
have sounded in your ears been ac- 


$ 


Xvi. | 


SPIRITUAL 


knowledged by that Spirit who can 
alone make the word effectual by giving 
it the energy of a hammer breaking the 
rock in pieces. I look around me, and 
see every symptom of attention engra- 
ven upon the countenance and expressed 
by the attitude of a listening people; 
but if all this is not accompanied by 
the purpose of abandoning the next act 
of homage you are tempted to render to 
an idol, under the imposing cover of all 
that stillness and seriousness which now 
sit so visibly among you, there is an en- 
mity of heart arrayed against me in all 
the obstinacy of resistance; I have ef- 
fected no lodgment in the inner man; 
and in my attempt to shake you out of 
the deceitfulness of sin, the enemy who 
reigns in and who occupies your bo- 
soms has withstood, and he has over- 
come me. 

In the great work of separating from 
an idol, and turning unto the Lord, there 
is an immediate movement that I would 
impress upon your footsteps. They 
must haste andmake no delay to keep 
the commandments. It is right that 
the object of an entire renunciation 
should be fully in your eye, but this ob- 
ject will never be attained unless the 
work of renunciation is begun to, and I 
lay it upon you to begin it immediately. 
It is right for you to understand, that 
you do nothing to the purpose unless it 
be done in the spirit of a general desire 
to do everything unto the Lord; but 
what signifies the purity of the motive 
that you should wish to do everything. 
if in deed and in performance you have 
not done anything, and are not prepared 
to do the very next thing which time 
and opportunity bring round to you? 
In the act of turning to the Lord, you 
must frame your doings, and every mo- 
ment of delay you incur in the doing 
of this one and that other prescribed 
thing, you are keeping separate from 
Him and clinging in service and in af- 
fection to one or more of your idols. I 
call upon you to break loose from every 
one of them; and if you do so, you will 
at this very instant emerge into the field 
of active obedience. You will go home, 





IDOLATRY 51Y 
and put their services and their society 

away from you; you will forbear the 
wonted homage that you have been 
daily and hourly rendering them. If 

hitherto you have worshipped the idol 
of sensual pleasure, your very next feast 
will be a feast of temperance. If hith- 
erto you have made an offering of truth 

to the idol of gain, your very next bar- 
gain will be a bargain of integrity. If 

hitherto you have made the offering of 

a sinful compliance to the idol of popu- 
larity among your profligate compan- 
ions, your very next meeting with them 
will be signalized by an act of virtuous’ 
independence. I admit of no parrying 
in this matter. I will not be satisfied 

with the faint generality of a wish that 

you should be separate, but I insist or 

the wish being turned into business im 

mediately, and evincing its strength and 

its reality by your coming out now from 

among them. I want to break up this 
dream of indolence; I want to blow in — 
pieces every delusion which prolongs it. 
Whatever the employment of mind be 
which keeps you from embarking in 
the career of immediate exertion, I pro- 
nounce it to be wrong. Should it even 
be the hard knot of some doctrinal dif- 
ficulty which shortens you and binds 
you up from putting forth an instant 
activity in this matter, I would cut it 
through, and tear it asunder as a spell 
of infatuation. Ah! my brethren, it is 
not enough that you be told how there 
must be an entire separation from idols 
ere you reach that place where nothing 
unclean and unholy ever enters. The 
hour of your departure from this world 
looks a distant futurity, and you put it 
far away from you; but I tell you that 
on this hour you must begin the work 
of separation; and knowing that delay 
is ruin, and how artful are the pleadings 
of the soul for a little more sleep and a 
little more slumber, I ply your con- 
sciences with the energy of an immedi- 
ate call, and lift in your present hearing 
the solemn announcement that now, 
even now, you must come out from 
amongst them. 


520 


SACRAMENTAL SERMON. 


SERMON XIX. 


Sacramental Sermon.® 


“Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate saith the Lord, and touch not the 
unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my 
sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”—2 Corrinrarans vi. 17, 18. 


Tue sinner who turns with his whole 
heart and whole soul to God comes to 
be separate from all idols. This is the 
object of his unceasing attempts and 
aspirations—this is the purpose by 
which he is actuated. The commence- 
ment of this purpose is marked by his 
coming from the service of idolatry, 
and at this time he comes out from 
among them. The continuance of this 
purpose is marked by his keeping from 
the service of the idolatry, and then it 
is that he refrains his hand from touch- 
ing the unclean thing. He has come 
out from among them, and he will not 
go back again; and lest he should be 
allured, he refrains from the most dis- 
tant approaches that may tempt his re- 
turn. He will not even venture upon 
the borders of temptation—he will not 
even so much as touch the unclean 
thing. He dreads the power of seduc- 
tion that lies even in the very outworks 
of idolatry, and he keeps studiously 
aloof from them. If temptation meet 
him, whether he will or not, he must 
grapple with it; but if he has a choice 
in the matter, he would rather fly from 
it. This is the safe and the scriptural 
way of managing every temptation— 
when it is in your power, keep without 
its reach. If your seducing compan- 
ions have still a power of seduction over 
you, shun, if possible, their presence. If 
a luxurious entertainment has still a 
power of oversetting your purposes of 
control, save yourself by a timely with- 
drawment, or keep altogether away 
from it. If an alluring object present 
itself before you, turn away your eyes 
from viewing vanity. Your safety lies 
in caution. It will be long, and very 
long, my refraining friends, ere you 





* Preached in the Tron Church at the first Sacrament 
ee by Dr. Chalmers in Glasgow, Sth November, 
15, 


cee nents anon nad Senet i Cn SSN SSS SNS ee 


should let down that vigilance which 
distrust and conscious weakness ought 
to inspire You have come out from 
among the idolatries of your former 
days, have you?—well, you will find 
the work of keeping out from them a 
work of great watchfulness. You will 
need to have all your eyes about you, 
for you are surrounded with images of 
deceit which would light up your old 
affections, and bear you back again into 
the old service. Oh! it is wise to be 
suspicious of yourself and fearful of 
your own firmness. Go not wilfully to 
commit a vessel so frail to the rude 
shock of contending temptations, and 
keep your presence-from the service of 
idolatry, and from all that would seduce 
you to the service. 

But to touch not the unclean thing is 
not a mere act and exercise of the body 
—it is a precept that may be addressed 
to the mind, and to the management of 
its thoughts and affections. Remove 
your mind from the contact of every 
unlawful object that would steal upon 
its desires and tempt it to purposes of 
sin. Should an unhallowed thought 
offer to intrude itself, and kindle up any 
wayward affections, rebuke it from the 
inner chamber of the soul. Should 
the temptings of an unfair speculation 
kindle up any desires of covetousness, 
spurn it away from you. Should some 
gay and earthly vision of futurity offer 
to mislead your fancy, and bind it in 
captive attachment to the world you 
had abandoned, let the great and com-: 
manding realities of an eternal inheri- 
tance chase the hollow deceitfulness 
from your bosom. Keep your heart 
with all diligence. It is not safe to let 
it linger on the mountains of vanity. 
It is not right to commit it to the haz- 
ard which it is in your power to fly 
from, or wantonly expose it to the temp- 


XLX. | 


tations which you. are commanded to 
pray against. Its tendencies are too 
much away from God, and too much 
directed to the creature, to be lightly 
tampered with; and it is only when 
you renounce the idolatries of the crea- 
ture, and keep yourself separate from 
it, and harbour not the temptations 
which would draw you back to it, that 
God will receive you. 

Before I proceed to the next clause, 
let me advert to one mischievous effect 
which the wordy and lengthened illus- 
trations of a preacher may give rise to. 
He takes up one or two verses of the 
Bible, and he breaks them down into 
separate pieces, and he bestows his seve- 
ral paragraphs upon each of them, and 
he leads his hearers to look upon each 
as furnishing a distinct topic of remark 
and contemplation, when, in fact, the 
whole impression of the whole verse 
should be all in his mind together, and 
should give a force and a direction to 
every one of its clauses. As to the two 
verses which [ have now submitted to 
you, by one breath of utterance I can 
pour the whole of it into the ear of a 
hearer—by one glance of the eye it can 
be all taken up into the mind of a reader 
-—in a single moment its entire meaning 
may have taken possession of the heart, 
so that with the act of obedience to the 
first clause, “Come out from among 
them,” there may exist at the same time 
an earnest desire after the fulfilment of 
the second clause, “ Be ye separate,” 
and a firm purpose of carrying the third 
clause into execution, “Touch not the 
unclean thing ;” and the joyful encour- 
agement which lies in the fourth clause, 
“JT will receive you,” giving movement 
to the very first steps of obedience, and 
cheering you through all its successive 
stages; and the blessed assurance of 
the Jast clause, “ I will be a Father unto 
you, and ye shall be my sons and daugh- 
ters, saith the Lord Almighty,” telling 
upon you at the very outset of your new 
career, and beginning to obtain the ear- 
nest of its full and farther accomplish- 
ment with your very first attempts to 
seek God, if haply you might find Him 
—for He sees you afar off; even as the 
father saw his prodigal son,and He hears 
the very earliest of your cries after Him, 
and the prayer of “ Turn me, and I shall 


SACKAMENTAL SERMON : 


521 


be turned,” lifted up from the very depths 
of enslavement, is not disregarded by 
Him ; and it is strength from Him put 
into you that gives you the power of 
coming out from idols, and kept up in 
you that gives you power of maintain- 
ing a continual separation from idols, 
and dealt out to you in every hour of 
need and of temptation that gives you 
the power of resisting, and fleeing, and 
touching not what is unclean; and thus 
with the promises in your eye at the 
very outset, you have also at the very 
outset a beginning experience of their 
accomplishment, and God, receiving you 
into friendship, hands out to you larger 
and larger supplies of strength for pro- 
gressive obedience, and holding Himself 
out as an offered Father—which He does 
at this moment to one aad to all of you 
—He follows up your very first answer 
to His call, Come out from among them, 
with larger and larger supplies of the 
Spirit of adoption—you grow in the joy- 
ful confidence of being His sons and 
daughters as you grow in other things 
—the promise of being a Father to you 
tells upon your faith at the very first ut- 
terance of the exhortation; and as you 
come on in the exercise of filial obedi- 
ence and filial affection, the alliance 
between you and God is begun with 
the very first act of turning to Him, 
and the very first expression you give 
of so turning by some act of obedience 
—as you persevere the alliance is culti- 
vated and made closer—and thus it is 
that the fellowship between God and 
his strayed children is begun and carried 
forward in time, and will at length re- 
ceive its blissful consummation in eter- 
nity. 

Now, mark the effect which may 
sometimes arise from a separate disser- 
tation being constructed on every sepa- 
rate clause and in the order of their fol- 
lowing. There are successive portions 
of time taken up in the act of attending 
upon the tardiness of a human illustra- 
tion, and we are apt to think that in the 
practice the several topics must be pro- 
ceeded upon in the same order, and one 
of them must be mastered ere we try 
the obedience or take the comfort of the 
rest. We must first come out, and then 
keep out, and then refram our hand 
from the most distant approaches of 


522 


temptation, and then, and not till then, 
God will receive us and be a Father to 
us. Now, my brethren, this is not the 
way of it. You read the whole of the 
text in a single instant, and in the very 
next your mind may be occupied with 
all its topics and set at work upon them 
all, and though the promises be the last 
in the enumeration, yet a faith in them 
may be the prime mover of the whole 
obedience which the text sets you to. 
At one and the same moment in which 
- you come out from the riot of profligate 
companions there may be the steady 
purpose of never going back to them, 
and the vigilant determination to shun 
their most distant approaches—and the 
impelling cause of the whole may be 
consciousness within you that in so do- 
ing you are choosing a better part—that 
you are coming over to the service of a 
(sod who is willing even now to receive 
you into friendship, and to take upon 
Him your fatherly guidance and protec- 
tion, and to feed you with spiritual 
nourishment, and to strengthen you for 
all the exercises of a spiritual obedience. 
Have you felt that I have set you to 
work your own way to God, and kept 
back from you the encouragement of 
the promise till you have done so? 
Then I have done wrong; and I now 
bring the full encouragement of the 
promise to bear upon you. Have any of 
you through the week been keeping at 
a distance from God, and trying bya 
hard struggle with the tyranny of idols 
to qualify yourselves for a nearer ap- 
proach to Him? ‘Then let the experi- 
ence of your heartless and fatiguing and 
unfruitful exertions shut you up unto the 
faith. I call upon you at this moment 
to strike an act of reconciliation with 
a willing and a beseeching God, and at 
the very time that “Come out from 
among them, and be ye separate, and 
touch not the unclean thing,” are all in 
the mind, let the promise of affection to 
all who will, and of fatherly affection to 
all who will, be taken firm hold of by 
an act of steady and believing assurance. 

The truth, therefore, that God is will- 
ing to receive you, I bring to bear upon 
the very first movements ‘of your return 
from the service of idols to His service. 
The goodness of God leadeth to repent- 
ance. A sense of that goodness brought 


SACRAMENTAL SERMON. 


[SERM. 


home to the heart by the faith of the 
gospel, mingles a constraining influence 
with the purposes of a mind deliberating 

upon the repentance of the gospel. Oh, 

no! my brethren, I will not therefore 
keep back the view of a willing and an 
inviting God till you have described 
some period of terror, and walked with- 
out Him in the cheerless round of some 
previous reformation. I want to possess 
your heart even now with the assurance 
of a God bending in compassion over 
you, and saying to one and to all— 
“Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die?” 
Charged as I am with this message of 

tenderness to the whole human race, I 
would not refuse to meet the most prof- 
ligate among you in the full onset of 

his wilful and determined career, and 
lay it across his path. I am not at 
liberty to keep it back from the- most 
worthless and abandoned of the species. 

The necessity is laid upon me, and woe 
is me if I preach not this gospel to sin- 
ners of all degrees, to rebels of all de- 
nominations. You could not, my breth- 
ren, you could not carry me to any one 
haunt of wickedness so deeply sunk in 
the lowest and the loathsomest of sin’s 
abominations, where I would not forget 
my office as the messenger of a be- 
seeching God, did I not lift my testi- 
mony to His willingness to receive all 
and to forgive all. You could not point 
my eye toasingle wanderer so far gone 
from the path of obedience that the 
widely-sounding call of reconciliation 
cannot reach him. You could not tell 
me of a heart so hard and so impenitent 
that I must not try to soften it by the 
moving argument of a God waiting to 
be gracious. Ay, it may have made. 
many a stout resistance to other argu- 
ments—it may have defied every warn- 
ing, and sheathed itself in impenetrable 
obstmacy against every threatening, and 
smothered every conviction by plunging 
the whole man into a deeper, and more 
desperate rebellion; and when all the 
terrors of the Lord were brought in 
mustering array against it, it may have 
gathered ‘itself up into a sterner attitude 
of defiance, and put on a darker scowl 
of alienation—Oh, can nothing now be 
done to storm the citadel that has all 
along held out so impregnably? Has 
the ambassador of God exhausted his 


xXx. | 


quiver of all its arguments? and must 
the poor child of infatuation be left 
without an effort more to rescue him 
from the perdition he so determinedly 
clings to? ; 

The text supplies me with one other 
argument. It puts into my mouth the 
very substance of that gospel which has | 


SACRAMENTAL SERMON, 


523 


despair under the burden of a guilt that 
is already upon me. It is true that 
every one sin heightens the displeasure 
of an offended God: but I am even 
now the object of displeasure which, if 
wreaked upon me in all the severity 
of justice, wouid sink me into a suffer- 
ing more deep and ~-painful than I can 


so often proved itself the power of God| stretch my conceptions to. It is true 
and the wisdom of God unto salvation. | that every act of rebellion committed by 
It unrobes God of all unrelenting sever-| my heart swells the heavy account that 
ity, and directs my eye to the Monarch | is betwixt me and God; but the ac- 
of the Universe seated on a tlirone of | count is already against me to my en- 


mercy, and pleading for the return of | tire and everlasting destruction—and 


His strayed creatures with every accent 
of tenderness. He speaks to them with 
the longings of a father bereaved of his 
children—He descends to the language 
of entreaty—the great God of heaven 
and of earth knocks at the door of every 
rebellious heart. and begs admittance. 
That heart which all the terrors of God 
could not force to repentance, He now 
plies with the goodness of God that He 
may lead it to repentance. I will re- 
ceive you—I have no pleasure in your 
death—I wish you all, and would wel- 
come you all, back again—I want you 
to be my sons and my daughters, and I 
will be a Father to you. Oh! my 
brethren, if after the wrath and the jus- 
tice of God have failed to move your 
hearts out of the inflexibility which be- 
longs to them, He shall again ply you 
with His invitations, and your bosoms 
shall remain in shut and sullen resist- 
ance to the tenderness of His touching 
voice—then to the disobedience of His 
law you have added the neglect of His 
salvation ; and surely it may be said of 
those who have not only resisted His 
authority, but have despised the riches 
“of His forbearance and His long suffer- 
ing, that the last arrow has been shot 
at them, and it has proved ineffectual— 
and that gospel which, had they re- 
ceived it, would have been to their soul 
the savour of life unto life, has turned out 
the savour of death unto death. 

Mark then, my brethren, how the 
faith of the gospel and the repentance 
of the gospel are linked together, and 
how the one furnishes the other with 
its most moving and effectual argument. 
It is true, I add to my guilt by perse- 
vering in my disobedience ; but with- 
out faith I feel all the helplessness of 











where, in all the wide compass and 
variety of human thought, shall we find 
a note that can stir up to exertion the 
man who knows that he is undone ? 
How, in the name of wonder, can that 
man be prevailed upon to help himself 
who knows that upon the very attempt 
there lies the burden of an impossibili- 
ty? How shall a man be excited to 
seek God if he knows that there is an 
insurmountable barrier between them ? 
How shall He enter upon the task of 
propitiating His mercy, if he knows that 
the immutability of His truth hes in the 
way of it? and that He of whom it is 
said, that He hath spoken and will He 
not perform—hath pronounced a curse 
upon all the children of iniquity? Ah! 
my brethren. had He not stepped for- 
ward Himself, and said,in the language 
of my text, that I will receive you, we 
would have lived without hope, and in 
so doing we would have lived without 
God in the world. Had these tidings 
of the gospel not reached us, we should 
have been kept down to our old habits 
and our old ways by the inactivity of 
despair; and it is not till the hope of 
making good our return dawns upon us, 
and the glad prospect of acceptance is 
laid before us to lure our footsteps from 
that path of disobedience in which we 
had wandered, that we shall move a 
single inch to the call of—* Come out 
from among them, and be ye separate, 
and touch not the unclean thing ;” and 
though “TI will receive you” be the last 
in the order of the enumeration put 
down in the Bible, it is among the first 
in the order of influence upon the be- 
liever’s mind ; nor should he have be- 
stirred himself in the great work of 
seeking after God had not the inviting 


524 


voice of God Himself waved him for- 
ward and drawn him to the enterprise. 

But God has done something more 
than proclaim an open way of return to 
the sinners who stand afar off. He 
hath told us how that way is opened. 
He hath explained to us the mystery of 
sinners being brought near, and being 
taken into acceptance. He has not left 
us to guess, and to wonder, and to sus- 
pect the purity of His justice and the 
inflexibility of His truth, and to look 
upon sin as a trifle that may be easily 
fallen into by the creature, and as easily 
connived at by the Creator. He hath 
made known His mercy, but not till He 
got that mercy to meet and be in har- 
mony with His truth. He hath pub- 
lished peace, but not till He established 
a firm alliance between peace and right- 
eousness. Along with the revelation 
of His mercy He hath made an awful 
vindication of the majesty of His high 
attributes. It is true He condescended 
to put Himself into the attitude of a 
petitioner, and implore the return of 
sinners, and ply them with the assuran- 
ces of His willmgness to welcome them 
back again. Wonderful attitude, in- 
deed, for the God whose law had been 
trampled upon, and who throughout this 
province of His mighty creation had a 
‘whole world turned in one wild outcry 
of rebellion against Him; but oh! my 
brethren, we mistake it, if we think that 
the attitude, wonderful as it is, was the 
attitude of fallen majesty, or of a God 
whose throne had been dismantled of all 
the securities which upheld it. Oh, no, 
my brethren; in this mighty triumph 
of mercy there was the triumph of His 
every other attribute; and while the 
messengers of God have a full warrant 
to pour into the sinner’s ear the plain- 
tive tenderness of a father in quest of 
his children who had wandered like 
sheep among the mountains away from 
him—the warrant is put into their hands 
by Him, who having magnified the law 
and made it honourable, has caused the 
truth and the righteousness of God to 
burst forth in brighter manifestation 
than ever upon the eyes of a guilty and 
humbled world. 

This resolves the whole mystery. Sin- 
ners who stand afar off are brought near 
to God through Him that died the just 


SACRAMENTAL SERMON. 


[SERM. 


for the unjust. He bare our sins on 
His body upon the tree, and His blood 
cleanseth from all sin. This is the sure 
way of access. This is the well ordered 
covenant. It is because the mighty 
obstruction is removed by Him who 
travailed in the greatness of His strength, 
that God says, without the drawback 
of a single impediment, “ Come out 
from among them, and be ye separate. 
and touch not the unclean thing, and I 
will receive you.” It is the assurance 
of being received—it is the confidence 
that every bar which lay on the road of 
access has been cleared away—it is a 
faith in the sufficiency of what the great 
Mediator has done for us, that gives the 
returning sinner all his encouragement 
to begin the work of repentance. It is 
this belief in the Son of God which 
gives a security to the very first acts of 
repentance, which carries him forward 
through all the successive steps of that 
process by which he recovers the lost 
image of Him who created him, which 
upholds him through all the varied 
scenes, and dangers, and enterprises of 
the Christian warfare, and at length, by 
the continued supplies of that grace 
which is so richly provided for all who 
ask it, makes him stand perfect and 
complete in the whole will of God. It 
is Christ who hath done all this. It is 
He, the memorials of whose atonement 
are placed before your eyes, that hath 
made this plain way for the feet of every 
returning penitent. Itis through Jesus 
Christ evidently set forth crucified be- 
fore you, that you draw near to God in 
all those exercises of hope and depend- 
ence and new obedience, that are pre- — 
scribed by Him, and are alone acceptable | 
through Him. It is He, the symbols 

of whose death we are this day employ- 

ed in contemplating, who hath opened 

through the veil of His flesh a new and 

a living way of access to God. _ Out of 

that way there is-no hope, and where 

there is no hope there is no steady nor 

acceptable godliness. I could not move 

towards a beimg who scowled severity 

upon me. I could not attempt to soften 

the God who stood before mine eyes 
shielded in all the inflexibility of un- 

appeased justice. Iam kept down by 

all the oppressive languor of helpless- 
ness and despair from offermg obedience 


xix. | 


to Him of whom it is said that He can- 
-not be mocked, and whose truth and 
purity demand that He should spurn 
my wretched attempts in abhorrence 
away from Him. But in Christ every 
bond is loosed, and every difficulty is 
done away—and the soft whisper of that 
pardon which He has purchased, and 
of that mercy, the gates of which He 
has unlocked and let down in plenteous 
redemption upon a despairing world, 
sends the right and the effectual influ- 
ence into a sinner’s heart; and it is my 
prayer that by this great and solemn 
act of remembrance you may get such 
a new and affecting view of the way of 
repentance which lies so clear and so 
open before you, that from this time 
forward you may cease from your idols, 
and come out from among them, and 
every day of your lives may be enabled 
to accomplish a wider and a more de- 
termined separation, and. to touch not 
any unclean thing which God hateth— 
that thus, while God, out of Christ, look- 
ing upon you as He did upon the Egyp- 
tians out of a cloud, and troubling your 
souls with the terrific aspect of a con- 
suming fire, would never have moved 
your approaches towards Him, may you 
now be prevailed upon to turn from all 
sin by the delightful assurance that 
God is willing to receive you ; and may 
you be cheered in your every attempt 
and your every performance by the 
winning countenance of God in Christ 
reconciling the world unto Himself, and 
not imputing unto them their trespasses. 


ADDRESS. 


Tue great and specifical end of that 
affecting solemnity we are now engaged 
in, is to show forth the death of Christ. 
This is our infirmity, my brethren, that 
we are so much the creatures of what 
is present, and of what is sensible. A 
thing seen makes a distinct and a pow- 
erful impression upon us. A thing that 
is spiritual, and. therefore cannot be 
seen, is conceived but faintly. There is 
a natural darkness about us through 
which the realities of the spiritual world 
look dim and distant, and leav® a very 
languid impression either on the feelings 
of the heart or on the purposes of our 


SACRAMENTAL SERMON, 


528 


willing and acting and resolving nature. 
And this holds true not merely of what 
is spiritual, but of what is sensible also 
if that which is sensible be not present 
-—if removed from us by the length of 
many ages, it can only be brought home 
by an act of remembrance, or rather by 
a narrative of history—if the mind must 
put itself on a stretch of conception in 
order to lay hold of it, and to be im- 
pressed by it, and to be awakened to 
that train of sentiment it is fitted to 
inspire. Now, my brethren, the death 
of Christ is an event which comes under 
the latter description. In contemplat- 
ing that death, the mind is not em- 
ployed on a spiritual object. That event 
did not take place beyond the confines 
of this tangible and material world. It 
was seen by the eye of man; and had 
we been present at the Crucifixion, that 
which we are now employed in remem- 
bering would have come home with all 
the force and all the vivacity of an act- 
ual representation upon our senses. 
But we are now placed at the distance 
of many hundred years from the era of 
that great decease which was accom- 
plished at Jerusalem, and we must stir 
ourselves up to lay hold of it by an act 
of apprehension, and we must summon 
all our powers of remembrance and of 
conception to the exercise ; and such is 
the sluggishness of our mental facul- 
ties, that—do our uttermost—we often 
cannot succeed in realizing anything 
beyond a very dull and spiritless imagt- 
nation of the Saviour’s death ; and to 
accommodate to this infirmity did our 
Saviour before He left the world, kindly 
bequeath and recommend to us the use 
of an expedient by which the aid of 
sense is as it were called in to brighten 
that impression which might otherwise 
have been so dark and ineffectual. He 
has instituted a lively and a touching 
memorial of the whole transaction. He 
has consecrated to the remembrance of 
His death the visible symbols of bread 
and of wine. He has so decreed it, 
that through the inlet of the senses His 
death may still be shown forth, and He 
Himself be evidently set forth crucified 
before us. And what I call on you, 
my brethren, practically to observe at 
present, is to make the appointed use 
of these material elements—through the 


526 


medium of the bread you eat, to think 
of the Saviour’s broken body—through 
the medium of the wine you drink, to 
think of the Saviour’s shed blood—to 
contemplate by the eye of faith the real, 
the substantial, the power-working sig- 
nificancy of this body and blood—how 
by the one the whole burden of your 
Iniquities is borne—how by the other 
you are cleansed from all sm—how by 
both you are reconciled to the great 
Lawgiver—how through the rent veil 
of the Redeemer’s flesh you may enter 
with boldness the presence of the Kter- 
nal—and how, if your mind be doing 
with the cross of the Saviour what your 
body is now doing with the memorials 
of the Cross, you are standing on that 
very way of access in which God will 
rejoice to meet you, and speak quietly 
to you, and make no more mention of the 
sins whereby you have sinned against 
Him, and rejoice over you to do all man- 
ner of good, and crown you with His 
loving-kindness and tender mercy, and 
give you peace of conscience here and a 
growing meetness for a crown of glory 
hereafter. 


The great event which we commemo- 
rate by the keeping of this sacrament 
is the death of the Saviour. The great 
event which we commemorate by the 
keeping of the Sabbath is the resurrec- 
tion of the Saviour. It is worthy of 
remark, that the first disciples did not 
take the week-day of His death to cele- 
brate that institution which our Saviour 
appointed as the memorial of it—neither 
did they take the week-day of that first 
sacrament at which our Saviour Him- 
self presided, and where He ate the 
passover with his sorrowing disciples. 
They remembered His death on the 
week-day of His resurrection. They 
assembled to break bread on the first 
day of the week. They fixed on the 
great day of Christian triumph as the 
occasion on which they chose to com- 
memorate an event which was -zlothed 
at the time in every character of sad- 
ness—which burst upon the despairing 
apostles as the death-blow of all their 
hopes—and forced them to give up all 
their fond and splendid anticipations of 
Him of whom they thought that verily 
it was He should have redeemed Israel. 


SACRAMENTAL SERMON. 


[SERM. 


Christ arose from the grave and restored 


to them all their triumphant thoughts 
of the Master they had chosen —and 
they fixed on the first day of the week 
for the sacrament of the Supper, that 
when its touching symbols reminded 
them how Christ had died, the day on 
which they made use of those symbols 
should put the comfortable suggestion 
into their hearts, that rather He is risen 
again. I, in the same manner, call on 
you, my brethren, to mingle the Sab- 
batical with the sacramental remem- 
brance; and while you weep over the 
afflicting memorials of that death by 
which the whole burden of a world’s 
atonement was borne by Him who in 
that hour put forth all His strength 
and travailed in the greatness of it, 
sorrow not even as others who have no 
hope; but think, oh think, of that right 
hand of God where He now liveth, and 
that place of glory which He now oc- 
cupies. 

But indeed the words of the institu- 
tion provide for this very remembrance. 
We are called on not merely to show 
forth the Lord’s death, but to show it 
forth till He come again. Now, from 
what quarter are we to look for Him? 
Not from the prison-house of the grave, 
for the barrier of this confinement He 
has already broken ; not from the toils 
of His contest with the principalities of 
sin and of death, for this contest is now 
over, and He has already ascended up 
on high, laden with the spoils and 
crowned with the triumphs of victory— 
not from the dark abodes of corruption, 
for He has already cleared his unfettered 
way from the whole of this bondage, and 
the men of Galilee beheld Him as He 
was taken up, and acloud received Him 
out of their sight, and a voice was heard 
by them, asking—Why stand ye gazing 
up into heaven, for this same Jesus which 
is taken up from you into heaven, shall 
so come in like manner as ye have seer. 
Him go into heaven? I should like 
you, my brethren, to exercise your faith 
on this solemn and affecting reality—I 
should like you to enter from this mo- 
ment into a firmer, and a faithfuller, and 
a mor@ closely felt alliance with that 
living mtercessor who is now looking 
over you—who sees your every heart— 
who takes a note of all its movements 


xx.] THE TEMPTATION. 527 


and all its purposes—who hands up your | along with you. Walk through life as 
most secret aspirations to the Father | the followers of Him of whom you have 
who sitteth on the throne, and is ever | now witnessed a good confession in the 
ready to plead the merit of His all-per-|eyes of men; and with hearts refreshed 
fect obedience on behalf of all who be- | by this act of fellowship with the Father, 
lieve in Him. Let the spirit of this | go back to your business and your homes 
hallowed place accompany you into the | more strengthened than ever for all duty, 
world. When you go down from the |more devoted than ever to all the pur- 
mount of communion, may its faith, and | suits and to all the performances of holi- 
ts peace, and its purposed holiness go ' ness. 








SERMON XX. 


The Temptation.* 


‘And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into 
the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: 
and when they were ended, he afterwards hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou 
be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, 
saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And 
the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world 
in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him. All this power will I give thee, and the 
glory of them, for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou 
therefore wilt worship me, allshall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee 
behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt 
thou serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and 
said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: for it is written, He 
shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee; and in their hands: they shall bear thee 
up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering, said unto him, 
It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the 
teinptation, he departed from him for a scason.”—Luxxr iv. 1—I13. 


Verse 1.—* And Jesus, being full|eat nothing; and when they were end- 
of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jor-|ed, he afterwards hungered.” There is 
dan, and was led by the Spirit into the |no doubt that the appellation of “ devil” 
wilderness.” It is worthy of remark |here is restricted to one particular being ; 
that as Jesus in His human nature was|and with us it has all the limited sig- 
tempted in all points like as we are, sojnification of a proper name. But the 
He overcame that temptation by the|term in the original is descriptive of 
very same power which is in a measure |character—given originally to the prince 
bestowed upon us for combating with 


of the apostate angels, because it cha- 
temptation. He overcame Himself, and |racterized him, but also occasionally 


it is out of His fulness that we receive |used in the Bible in its general signifi- 
that which enables us to overcome also.|cation. Thus, if taken in its original 
He was full of the Holy Ghost in His| meaning, it may be, and actually 1s in 
combat with the great adversary. It|jsome parts of the Bible, applied to hu- 
was a contest between the power of |man beings. In its primitive sense, 1t 
God’s Spirit and of the spirit which |signifies a false accuser, or a slanderer, 
worketh in the children of disobedience. jor a traducer. (1 Tim. iii. 11; 2 Tim. 
The parties in the contest, when Christ |iii. 3; Tit. ii 3; John vi. 70.) Satan 
our head was engaged, were the _ another name applied to the prince 


calaltencaiaadige sate aioe aaa nca 


same with the parties in the contest|of the apostate angels. It is also sig- 

when we His members are engaged. _jnificant of character or state, and means 
Verse 2.—* Being forty days tempted |an adversary. 

of the devil. And in those days he did} Verse 3.—“ And the devil said unto 

e _____________|him, If thou be the Son of God, com- 

mand this stone that it be made bread.” 








* Preached at Glasgow, 26th November, 1815. 


528 


We have, in al] probability very far 
from a full record of all the wiles and 
suggestions of the tempter. Christ was 
tempted forty days—it is .hought by 
the mere instigations whicn the devil 
put into His heart; but that he after- 
wards, at the end of this time, appeared 
to Him in a visible form, when He was 
ahungered with long abstinence, and 
then plied Him with three great and 
last attempts to seduce Him from His 
post of entire trust and entire obedi- 
ence to God. 

Verse 4.—“ And Jesus answered him, 
saying, It is written, That man shall 
not live by bread alone, but by every 
word of God.” When Jesus took upon 
Him human nature, He did so for the 
express purpose that He should suffer 
and that He should do as a brother of 
the species. It is the perfection of His 
human obedience which renders His 
example applicable to us; and it is this 
which qualified Him for being a High 
Priest for others. He had no sins of 
His own to atone for. He knew no 
sin, yet became a sin-offering for us; 
and it is the purity of His obedience as 
a man which is imputed for righteous- 
ness to them who believe on Him. 
Now, had He made use of His miracu- 
lous power for the purpose of exempt- 
ing Himself from those sufferings which 
were Jaid upon Him by His Father, 
this would not only have impaired the 
perfection of His suffering obedience, 
but would have made it quite useless 
to us as an example—for we have not 
the miraculous power that He had ever 
in readiness to be exerted in the -hour 
of calamity. It would have been a 
positive non-compliance with the ap- 
pointment of His Father; for you will 
observe that His situation in the remote 
wilderness, and the consequent hunger 
which His distance from the supplies 
of food brought upon Him, was nota 
thing of His own doing. He was led 
by the Spirit into His present situation 
—there He was by the will of God. It 
was not for Him to do anything, but to 
wait the issue of God’s counsel concern- 
ing Him. ‘To work a miracle in order 
to repair the necessary evil of the situa- 
tion into which God had brought Him, 
were to distrust God. The language 
for Him was, My Father brought me 


THE TEMPTATION. 


[ SERM. 


here, and He will carry me in safety 
out again. The pain He felt from hun- 
ger was of God’s laying on; and should 
He endeavour to assuage it by a mira- 
cle, this were an advantage to Himself, 
but no advantage in the way of exam- 
ple, no advantage to the individuals of 
that species whose form He put on, 
and whose infirmities He bore, and 
whose sufferings He underwent—that 
He might set Himself before them an 
example that they should walk in His 
steps. It would have frustrated this 
purpose entirely, besides being a posi- 
tive act of dissent from the will of God 
which brought Him to His present sit- 
uation, and which laid upon Him all 
his sufferings. The gift of working 
miracles belonged to Him as a talent 
for the use of others, and not as a privi- 
lege for the ease or gratification of 
Himself. There is another remarkable 
example of His abstaining from the 
exercise of miraculous power, when it 
could have served the purpose of de- 
livermg Him from His enemies. He 
could have obtained the assistance of 
twelve legions to deliver Him from the 
hands of His murderers; but He for- 
bore—for had He done so, it would 
have frustrated the purposes of His mis- 
sion. That example reflects an expla- 
nation on the present one. The senti- 
ment with which He repelled the insti- 
gation of the tempter was a sentiment 
of trust in God. God brought me here, 
and He can provide for me here. I 
am not to step out of my way to save 
myself from the painfulness of a situa- 
tion of God’s putting me into. I am 
not to do what is undutiful or untrust- 
ful to recover the mischiefs of a state 
which was brought on by Him, and 
not by any independent movement of 
my own human will at all. Here I 
am by His will; and my confidence is 
in His wisdom, and in the power of 
His word, which is able, if He so 
choose, to keep me alive in the absence 
of all ordinary means. 

There is one remarkable peculiarity 
worthy of all observation in this verse, 
Christ was led by the Spirit into the 
wilderness. It was in the fulness of the 
Spirit that He entered into the contest 
with the great adversary of men. It 
was by the armour of the Spirit's sug- 


xx.] 


gestion that He was enabled to over- 
come all the artfulness and all the al- 
lurement of the suggestions of the 
tempter. But still the suggestion with 
which He combated and overcame, 
though given Him by the Spirit, was 
neither more nor less than a quotation 
from the Bible. This is a fine illustra- 
tion of the passage where the word of 
God is called the sword of the Spirit. | 
It may practically be of great use to 
all of you. Take every practicable and 
ordinary means for making yourselves 
acquainted with your Bibles. Store 
your minds with its sayings and its. 
passages, for they constitute—if I may 
be allowed the expression—the material 
armour by which you wrestle with the | 
enemies of your salvation. When 
tempted. for example, to evil company, 
it is no doubt the Spirit that will enable 
you to turn aside from this temptation ; | 
but it is not by any visitation of extraor- 
dinary light upon the subject of this 
danger. He may do no more than ex-| 
ercise His office of bringing all things 
to remembrance, by bringing the single 
text—‘ Be not deceived ; evil commu- 
nications corrupt good manners,” to 
bear with powerful efficacy upon your 
understandings and your fears. This | 
is the general way in which He acts. 
We have no reason to expect that in 
any given case He will ever act other- 
wise. It is presumption to trust in any 
other kind of illumination than by the 
words of Scripture being made lumi- 
nous and impressive to you; or in any 
other kind of defence than by the moral 
influence of the lessons of Scripture 
upon the choice and conduct of the be- 
liever. There is something highly in- 
teresting in this introduction of the 
Bible as the weapon made use of by 





the Son of God, to carry Him through 
the contest with the prince and the 
leader of that mighty rebellion, which 
seems to have spread so extensively 
over some higher fields of creation. 
Let it rebuke our irreverence for the 
sacred volume—let it chase away the 
fanaticism of all unscriptural visions 
and unscriptural inspirations from the 
religion which we profess, and to which 
we do injustice if we strip it of the 
dignity of reason, or graft upon it the 
weaknesses of a superstitious fancy. Let 
6 


THE TEMPTATION. 


52% 


it teach us, on the one hand, that we 
do wrong by resting a security on the 
naked promise of the Spirit to guide 
and to enlighten us—for the Spirit does 
so, not against and not without, but 
with the use of the Bible; and we 
have no right whatever to expect that 
He will make use of this instrument in 
our behalf, if we do not take the pre- 
scribed way of using it in our own be- 
half Let us be diligent in the exercise 
of all ordinary means for growing in 
the knowledge and in the remembrance 
of it—let it be our daily perusal; and 
let us never think that we shall be able 
to overcome temptation with our minds 
away from the Bible—but that it is 
when the lessons of the Bible are pres- 
ent to our minds, when we have laid up 
the word of God in our heart. that we 


do not offend Him. 


But, on the other hand, let us net 
forget, that though .it was by a quota- 
tion from the Bible that our great 
Patron repelled the instigation of our 
great adversary, He was all the while 
under the guidance of the Spirit. It 
was in the fulness of the Holy Ghost 
that He grappled with the mighty ene- 
my of human salvation. While we 
read, then, let us feel at the same time 
our dependence on Him who alone can 
make us understand what we read with 
a saving and a spiritual discernment ; 
and while we exercise our memory 
upon what we read, let us feel our de- 
pendence at the same time on Him who 
alone can bring things to our remem- 
brance so as to suit our occasions, and 
who can give us grace to help us in the 
time of need by bringing into our mind 
that verse. or that passage. or that scrip- 
tural sentiment, which will serve as the 
appropriate suggestion for repelling the 
temptation on hand. Now, this is the 
right and compound attitude of those 
who busy themselves in either learning 
the way of salvation, or walking in that 
way. It is only with the ordinary use 
of the Bible, on the one hand, and the 
dependence of faith on the pure and 
life-giving Spirit, on the other, that we 
complete the preparation for fighting 
with all the enemies of our souls, and 
may be said to have taken to ourselves 
the whole armour of God. 

In the order of the narrative by 


rf 


530 


Matthew, what is recorded by Luke as 
the last and concluding attempt of the 


THE TEMPTATION. 


[SERM 


whom you made an experiment with 
the view of ascertainirg his fidelity ana 


devil, is brought in as immediately suc- | the extent of his regard for you. For 
ceeding the one that I have now so | this purpose you might create a case, or 


largely insisted on. 
present pass over the intermediate verses 
and go on to the ninth verse. The last 
sentiment which our Saviour expressed 


was a sentiment of reliance upon God. | picion of him? 


| 
i 





I shall therefore at | you might feign a necessity, with the 


view of ascertaining what the conduct 
of your doubtful friend would be. Now 
does not this imply an ungenerous sus- 
Is there not a want of 


(tod hath brought me into a way of His | trust in the very attempt to make your- 
own choosing; and I will submit to all | self surer of him than you feel your- 


the sufferings of that way, and will | self to be at this moment? 


rather trust to some miraculous exercise 
of power in my favour, than by an act 
of distrust and an act of undutifulness, 
make any attempt to escape these suf- 
ferings myself. The present temptation 
is most artfully accommodated to this 
state of mind. Let me now try the ex- 
tent of your trust in the power of God; 
throw yourself from this pinnacle of the 
temple, and see what God’s power can 
accomplish for you. You have brought 
one verse from the Bible to repel my 
last suggestion, I will bring another to 
enforce my present one. And thus, 
with a besetting plausibility of argu- 
ment and address, does this Satan ask 
it of our Saviour to cast Himself down 
from hence, “ For it is written, He shall 
give His angels charge over thee, to 
keep thee; and in their hands they shall 
bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash 
thy foot against a stone.” The answer 
to this proposal is given in verse 12— 
“Tt is said, Thou shalt not tempt the 
Lord thy God.” To tempt signifies to 
try. The effect of a trial is often a dis- 
covery of the sinfulness and deceitful- 
ness of him who is the subject of it; 


and hence, to tempt has got another sig- | 


nification distinct from the original one 
—to allure, to seduce. But here you 
must take it according to its original 
meaning—thou shalt not put God to the 


proof—thou shalt not make an experi- | 


ment of God. But it is said here, “The 
Lord thy God.” Now the God whom 
you. have embraced as a reconciled 
Hather may be called thy God. Jesus 
could well appropriate God in this man- 
ner;,and you may understand wherein 
the sinfulness of tempting God consists, 
by figuring to yourself the case of a 
friend whom you had every reason to 
trust, but whom in point of fact you 
were not perfectly sure of, and upon 


And if you 
have every reason to repose in the faith- 
fulness and in the constancy of his af- 
fection, were it not a more generous con- 
fidence on your part to carry about with 
you the general assurance—“ If I get 
involved in necessities [ am sure he will 
step forward to get me out of them,” 
than for you to step out of your way, 
and either create or feign a necessity for 
the purpose of trying him? And so of 
Grod, my brethren, in the present case, 
in reference to Christ. He had already 
given proof of the confidence He rested 
on the support of His Father and of His 
Frient. by the way in which He resisted 
the first instigation of the great adver- 
sary. I will not step out of the way in 
order to deliver myself from the evils 
of a situation into which God hath him- 
self led me—I will not break a duty to 
do so. I will not put my power of 
working miracles to a different use from 
that for which it was conferred upon 
me. This power was not conferred for 
the purpose of helping myself out of 
the trials which God is pleased to lay 
on me, and to make this use of it would 


| be an act of distrust and an act of re- 





bellion. Oh, no! here I am by His 
will, and I leave myself with unbound- 
ed confidence to His wisdom. Now ob- 
serve the address and the promptitude 
with which His able and intelligent ad- 
versary avails himself of this state of 
sentiment in the mind of Jesus. Give 
us a proof of this confidence—cast 
yourself down from the pinnacle of this 
temple—let not your distrust in God ar- 
rest you or make you hesitate about 
doing this, for He will bear you up; 
and out of those very Scriptures from 
which you have gotten your argument 
against my first instigation, do I bring 
an argument in behalf of my second 
instigation, for it is written, how He has 


a THE 
given His angels charge over thee, to 
keep thee ; and how in their hands they 
shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou 
dash thy foot against a stone. 

ow mark the still superior intelli- 
gence and address with which our Sa- 
viour extricated Himself from this wile 
of the adversary. He perceived where 
the art lay, and He saw through the 
covering of plausibility which he who 
had the power of transforming himself. 
into an angel of light spread over it; 
and by the answer, Thou shalt not 
tempt the Lord thy God, He most en- 
tirely vindicated the consistency of his 
own sentiments, and most triumphantly 
repelled this renewed attack of the 
tempter. I would not go out of my 
way to distrust God’s faithfulness; but 


neither will I go out of the way to put 


his faithfulness to the trial. If God put 
me into a given situation, [ am sure 
that out of all its evils and all its diffi- 
culties He will extricate me; but I will 
not put myself, by any wanton, or arbi- 
trary, or undutiful act of mine, into any 
given situation with the view of an ex- 
‘perimenting on the kindness and the 
fidelity of God. Of that kindness and 
that fidelity I entertain the most unsha- 
ken assurance. Sustained by this prin- 
ciple I will endure all the agonies of 
hunger, till the same Spirit who led me 
into this wilderness leads me out of it. 
T am here by His will; nor will I take 
one unwarrantable step to alleviate the 
burden of these trials which He is 
pleased to lay upon me; but it is the 
very strength of this confidence upon 
which Satan is persuading me to put 
my Friend and my Father to the trial 
that makes me resist such an experi- 
ment, and repel the artful suggestion 
which would lead me to it. I will not 
betray a distrust in God by going out 
of the way to provide myself with bread ; 
neither will [ betray a distrust in God by 
going out of my way to ascertain a point 
which I am already sure of. Oh! it 
was a deep and artful policy which lay 
at the bottom of this second instigation ; 
but does not this just heighten your es- 
teem for the discernment of that super- 
ior wisdom which overmatched and 
overruled it? and in the pure and deli- 
cate and correct line of conduct which 
was followed by our Saviour, do you not 


TEMPTATION. 


531 


perceive both the reach of a command- 
ing sagacity, and the harmonious work- 
ings of one noble, consistent, and well- 
sustained principle ? 

This passage of our Saviour’s history 
admits, [ think, of many interesting ap- 
plications. But at present I shall con- 
clude with one remark which, if kept in 
mind, might prepare you for the various 
lessons wherewith the narrative of our 
Saviour’s temptation is charged. I beg 
that you will make a distinct exercise 
of attempting to get the better of those 
ludicrous and degrading associations 
which the very name and conception of 
the devil do in fact bring into the mind. 
It is most unfortunate when any one 
item in the list of revealed truths is con- 
templated in such a light as to have 
anything of the mean or the familiar, 
and far more, of the light and jocular, 
annexed to it. I have no doubt that 
the general levity of sentiment which 
obtains even among professing Chris- 
tians upon this subject is the work of 
one of his own artifices. Its undoubted 
effect is to disguise from the eye of your 
own minds the power and the serious- 
ness of your own enemies—to lull you 
into a security where no security should 
be felt—to make you laugh when you 
ought to be alarmed—to seduce you 
from the post of vigilance you are ev- 
erywhere called upon to maintain—and 
te fill you with giddiness upon a subject 
on which you ought to feel all the so- 
lemnity of a Bible doctrime, and all the 
seriousness of a danger that, if not 
guarded against, may beset you to your 
final and everlasting destruction. Is 
there anything in the passage now sub- 
mitted to you, that throws the slightest 
air of wantonness over this department 
in the field of revelation? Do you not 
see in it all the talent and skill of an 
archangel. guided no doubt by the ma- 
lignity of his fallen nature, but bring- 
ing all the resources of a most consum- 
mate art into this one battle with the 
Captain of our salvation-——and overborne 
only by that superior reach of discern- 
ment, and that superior force of princi- 
ple, which belonged to Him in whom 
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge. 

Point me a single other passage of 
the Bible that can at all justify the 








532 


senseless levities which are indulged 
upon this topic. It is in that high and 
prophetic visior of the Son of God, 
when He said, I beheld Satan fall like 
lightning from heaven—or in that verse 
where he is called the god of this 
world—or in that where the mighty 
work of the Saviour is stated to consist 
in the destroying of his works—or in the 
anxious and repeated warnings by which 
the disciples are everywhere plied, that 
they may resist him, that they may 
guard against him, that they may not 
keep themselves ignorant of his devices, 
that they may not be taken captives by 
him at his pleasure, that they may not 
be blinded by him lest the glorious 
gospel of Christ should shine upon 
them? Ah! my brethren, we see not 
the matter aright, if we see not the most 
sublime and eventful contest going on 
among the upper orders of creation, and 
that the sovereignty over men is the 
grand object of the contest. In the 
passage before us, you see Satan in vis- 
ible alarm for the security of his usurped 
dominions; and you see him foiled in 
his first attempt on the great Prince 
and Deliverer of mankind, who, in the 
mighty travail of His soul, put forth 
all the greatness of His strength, and 
spoiled principalities and powers, and 
made a show of them openly. This is 
the actual situation of the world—a 
mighty stage of conflict and ambition 
to higher beings, who are aspiring after 
the mastery over it. We are the sub- 
jects of this great and mighty conten- 
tion ; and is it, I would ask, is it a right 
exercise for us to lift the idiot laugh, 


THE TEMPTATION. 


[SERM. 


and scatter our ridiculous allusions 
around a matter of which the Bible has 
attested the solemn and impressive real- 
ity, and in which the fate of our eternity 
is so deeply involved? Ah? my bréth- 
ren, you are not rightly prepared for 
the contest, if you remain thus wilfully 
and wantonly ignorant of the enemies 
that beset you—you have not yet put on 
the whole armour of God, if the habit- 
ual attitude of resistance to the great 
adversary be not diligently maintained 
by you—you have not done all to stand, 
if you exercise not that faith in Christ 
by which alone you are enabled to 
withstand him whose works Christ 
came to destroy—you do not see the 
matter aright, if in every temptation 
which crosses your path, and in every 
evil thought which would lead you from 
the belief or the love or the practice of 
the gospel, you do not recognize an- 
other and another attempt of him who 
is incessantly warring against the soul: 
And happy shall I be, my brethren, 
should these hints give such a direction 
to the desire and the doings of any one 
of you, as may help you forward in that 
great business of sanctification, by which 
the influence of the Evil One over your 
alienated hearts is completely done 
away, and you are rendered altogether 
meet for the company of Him in heaven 
—whose grace dealt out to you on earth 
enables you to resist the devil, and pur- 
ifies you from all spot and wrinkling, 
and restores to you the lost image of 
your Creator, and prepares you for the 
fellowship of Him and of the unfallen 
angels who surrounds His throne. 


xx1 ] THE TEMPTATION. 533 


SERMON XXI. 


The Temptation.* 


“ And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into 
the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: 
and when they were ended, he afterwards hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou 
be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, 
‘saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And 
the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world 
in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the 
glory of them, for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou 
therefore wilt worship me, allshall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee 
behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt 
thou serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and 
said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: for it is written, He 
shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee 


up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. 
It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 


And-Jesus answering, said unto him, 
And when the devil had ended all the 


temptation, he departed from him for a season.”—Luke iv. 1—13. 


Jesus was set before us as an exam- 
ple that we should follow His steps; 
and if we do not fasten an attentive eye 
upon all that He did in this lower 
world, we do not fulfil the duty which 
lies upon us of looking unto Jesus. In 
conformity to the undoubted truth of 
this assertion, that all Scripture is prof- 
itable, there is no part of our Saviour’s 
revealed history which may not be 
turned to some profitable account; and 
it is from the want of attention, from 
the listless and superficial style of our 
reading the Bible, and running over 
the task of its successive chapters, that 
so many of its passages are just of as 
little significancy, and exert as smal] an 
influence over us, as if they were veiled 
from our eye by some material cover- 
ing, or occurred at intervals as so many 
chasms of blank paper. Many of us, 
perhaps, may never have adverted to 
the practical lessons that may be gath- 
ered from the history of the remarkable 
encounter that took place between the 
Captain of our salvation, armed as He 
was with the fulness of the Spirit of 
God, and that great adversary who, 
whatever our dark and degraded con- 
ceptions of him, is at the head of a 
mighty rebellion on the wide theatre of 
God’s administration, and, with the ex- 
ception of a very little flock, wields an 
entire ascendency over the face of this 





* Preached at Glasgow, 3d December, 1815. 


world which leth in wickedness, and 
claims so thorough and so firm a footing 
in this province of the universe, that he 
is called in the Bible the god of this 
world ; and who, when he made his at- 
tack upon the Saviour, armed with the 


|Spirit of God, entered into the combat 


with Him by the opposing armour of 
that spirit which worketh in the chil- 
dren of disobedience ; and the result of 
the contest, wherein the great Head of 
the Church was engaged, was just the 
same .with what the result will be of 
that actual contest which he carries 
on with the members of the Church ; 
even those who hold Christ the Head, 
and who, receiving out of His fulness 
the same Spirit of God, will be ena- 
bled to overcome on this principle, that 
greater is He who is in them than he 
who is in the world. 

But we have not gathered all the 
information that is to be gotten out of 
the passage before us, until we have 
ascertained what the precise moral les- 
sons are which the conduct of Christ, 
under the particular temptations by 
which He was assailed, is fitted to im- 
press. Do any cases occur in the whole 





history of man, bearing such a resem- 
blance to the cases of the text that we 
may obtain out of them a pointed and 
particular instruction of Go, and do 
likewise? Tell me a single case, for 
example, that can make out anything 
like a parallel between the situation of 


534 


a human being and the situation of Je- 
sus Christ, when He was tempted by 


THE TEMPTATION. 


the instigation of commanding this 


stone that it be made bread. Why, my 
brethren, I believe that out of this pas- 
sagé a principle may be gathered appli- 
cable to a thousand diversities in the 
history of human affairs; but instead of 
announcing a general principle, and 
then applying it to cases, I have often 
thought it a more effectual way to be- 
gin with stating an impressive case, 
and: out of that evolving a clear and 
commanding principle. I direct your 
attention, then, all at once to the very 
frequent and familiar case of a man on 
the eve of bankruptcy, when he is agi- 
tated by all the forebodings of contro- 
versy, when futurity lowers upon him, 
and his heart bleeds within him at the 
approaching descent which his family 
must soon make before the eye of the 
public. I do not say that the resem- 
blance between him and his great pat- 
tern lies in his having to sustain the 
buffeting of a personal encounter with 
the adversary of his soul; but think 
not, my brethren, think not that the 
vigilant eye of this prince of darkness is 
not upon him—that he is not making 
every use of his opportunity to secure a 
subject to his dominions; and. though 
he does not whisper the temptation into 
his ear, think not that he is not plying 
his heart with an allurement which 
many, I fear, in the unhappy circum- 
stances [ am now conceiving, have 
found to be irresistible. He does not 
just say, Command this stone that it be 
made bread; but does he not come 
round the despairing man with his 
busy suggestions, and make every trial 
to shake him out of his integrity. and 
fill his agitated bosom with the painful 
image of a beggared family, even as the 
bosom of the Saviour was filled with 
the agonies of hunger? And do you 
not think that he has some hand in the 
affair when the deluded man is medita- 
ting on unfair and dishonourable expedi- 
ents for securing some fragment to him- 
self out of the wreck of his ruined spec- 
ulation ? 

Ah! my brethren, it is he who, in 
effect, has commanded that such goods 
_ as can be easily conveyed from the notice 
of creditors shall be turned into bread. 





[ SERM. 


It is he who sets you on some plan of 
secresy for turning all you can lay your 
hand on into a provision for yourself 
and for your children. It is he who 
glosses over the dishonesty of the pro- 
ceeding, and lulls the conscience into 
quietness, by mingling with the tempta- 
tion the kind, and amiable, and natural 
impulse of a parent’s affection and a 
parent’s anxiety. It is he, my brethren, 
who pursues this artful game, and finds 
his abundant harvest of ruined principle 
and integrity in that sweeping tide of 
fluctuation, which sets in at intervals 
with such a devouring energy, as not 
only to overwhelm the rash adventurer, 
but to tear up by the sinews the firmest 
and oldest establishments. Ah! my. 
brethren, it is in a season so critical as 
this that the principle of a Christian is 
brought to its severest trial, and that 
the wily tempter plies him with the 
suggestion to take hold of what is not 
his own. and on what he has no right to 
put his finger, that he might turn it into 
bread. 

Now, mark the sentiment wherewith 


|a real and an altogether Christian will 


meet the deceitfulness of this temptation. 
The elevated language of his heart will 
be, “ Though He slay me, yet will I 
trust in Him.” Though the terrors of 
approaching poverty are mustering be- 
fore me in dark and threatening array, 
yet will I not be tempted from my in- 
tegrity. My Saviour would not com- 
mand the stone to be made bread, be- 
cause had He done so He would have 
violated a committed trust. I will not 
turn a single fragment of my substance 
to the secret purpose of a provision for 
my family, because should I do so, I 
would be violating a commanded duty. 
Oh, no! [ will meet this temptation as 
my great Hixemplar did before me, and 
I will meet it with His own weapon 
and His own sentiment—that man does 
not live by bread alone, but by every 
word which proceedeth out of the mouth 
of God. Oh! what a fine security does 
Christian principle confer, for all that 
is just, and honourable, and of good 
report! How clearly and command- 
ingly does the line of duty lie before 
the eye of him who has firmly seated 
his confidence in God! We have a war- 
rant to pray to Him for daily bread ; 


xx. ] 


and tell me if ever the promise failed of 
its accomplishment, that as the. day 
came the provision of the day came 
along with it? To this extent every 
Christian is warranted to trust in Him ; 
and with such an anchor of security. all 
distressing anxieties for the morrow 
should be given to the winds. This is 
the noble defence which I call on one and 
all to set up, in that dark hour of their 
visitation, when they are floundering 
along through an ocean of many diffi- 
culties. “I have been young and now 
am old,” says the Psalmist, “and yet 
never have I seen the children of the 
righteous begging their bread.” This 
word proceedeth out of the mouth of 
God ; and be assured, my brethren, that 
if you hold fast your integrity, you will 
secure for your children the inherit- 
ance of a heavenly Father’s blessing, as 
well as of an earthly father’s unsullied 
name. 

I trust, my brethren, that this case 
brings home to your mind the general 
principle that no difficulties whatever 
should tempt you to put forth your 
hand to a violation of the law of God— 
that as the Saviour kept rigidly by His 
trust, you will keep rigidly by your 
duty; and an unshaken confidence in 
His word, will, under every temptation 
of unlawful gain, keep you in steadfast 
adherence to His will. 

Let me now proceed to the mora! 
lesson that may be gathered out of the 
second recorded attempt of the great 
adversary (second in Matthew. though 
third in Luke) of men upon the great 
Captain of man’s salvation. Why. he 
bade Him, since His trust in God was 
so great, throw Himself from the pin- 
nacle of the temple, and He would be 
borne in safety to the ground. Let me 
explain to you shortly the principle on 
which our Saviour resisted that tempta- 
tion. Whatever the situation be in 
which the will and the providence of 
God have placed me, such is my con- 
fidence in His wisdom, that I will not 
do an undutiful or an untrustful thing 
to help myself out of it; but though I 
trust God, I will not tempt God; I will 
not, by any wanton and uncalled-for 
movement on my part, put myself into 
a situation, in the false hope that He 
will bear me up and defend me against 


THE TEMPTATION. 


535 


all the danger of it. [ am sure of His 
wisdom ; but I would not have man, in 
whose behalf it is my office to hold out 
an example, to be so sure of his own 
wisdom as to step out of his way. under 
the false presumption that God will ever 
be interfering to protect him from the 
consequences of his own errors and his 
own temerity; and accordingly, He re- 
pelled the instigation of His opponent 
by the memorable sentence—“ Thou 
shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” 
Now is there any conceivable case, in 
the history of human affairs, to which 
this passage in the example of our Sa- 
viour is applicable? Is there any such 
thing as men being tempted to throw 
themselves down from the pinnacles on 
which they are standing? Why, my 
brethren, I think there is. There is an 
actual giving way to the second tempta- 
tion in ordinary life, and among the 
same men, too, who are most ready to 
give way to the first temptation. It 
were not difficult, [ think, to prove the 
consistency of principle which runs 
through both the answers of our Saviour 
to the two distinct proposals of His 
skilful and malicious antagonist. And 
I think it another proof of this con- 
sistency, that the two temptations which 
our Saviour resisted by one and the 
same exercise of sentiment, are often 
yielded to by one and the same individ- 
ual. To take up my former illustration, 
does it not often happen, that the same 
man who is most ready to give way to 
the excessive spirit of commercial ad- 
venture, is the least scrupulous as to the 
rights of his injured creditors? In the 
act cf turning what is legally and equi- 
tably theirs to his own use, he is com- 
manding that to become bread to his 
family which he has no right to put a 
finger upon; and in so doing he is giv- 
ing way to the first temptation. Think 
not, my brethren, oh, think not, that ] 
pronounce a sentence of sweeping con- 
demnation on the unfortunate; but let 
me ask. if it does not sometimes happen, 
‘that the first temptation assails him 
only because the second has already 
been given way to—that had he kept by 
the safe and the moderate line of his 
first operations, he would have had all 
the safety of man who was walking 
upon sure ground; but this would not 


; 


536 


satisfy him, and he threw himself from 

the actual pinnacle of his standing in 

society, and plunged into the abyss of} 
some tempting speculation—not with 

the view of being brought to the earth 

in safety, it is true, but with the view 

of being wafted by some gale of pros- 

perity to a higher pinnacle of wealth 

and of distinction than he before stood 

upon. You all know, my brethren, the 

difference between a line that is less, 

and a line that is more hazardous. I 

will not pretend to draw the limit be- 

tween duty and disobedience in this 

department of human affairs—this must 

be left to your own experience, and your 

own prayers for the directing wisdom 

of God; but surely, surely, my breth- 

ren, it is right that you should know in , 
the general. how a man may put him- 
self out of the sure track of an humble 
employment, and by so doing may incur 
that charge of temerity which you would 
fasten on the man who threw himself 
down from a pinnacle—how confidence 
in one’s good fortune may be carried to | 
the length of a blind impetuosity—how 

the glitter of an ambitious speculation 

may just have the same effect upon him 

as if the tempter whispered into his ear 

that he should throw himself down 

from the pinnacle on which he was 

standing, and that he should, by the 

buoyancy of a prosperous gale, be wafted 

to a pinnacle of greater height and glo- 

ry; and how, in giving way to this sec- 

ond temptation, he is not trusting God, 

but he is trusting to a picture of his 

own imagination, and tempting God. 

I must not dwell too long upon this 
topic; and will not stop to extract all 
the instruction that may be gathered 
out ofthe interesting passage now be- 
foreus. Hnough that [set your thoughts 
agoing about it: and if I do so, you will 
soon perceive, that out of this second 
temptation there may be gathered a 
lesson far more general than the one I 
have now insisted on. viz., that of re- 
straining the spirit of commercial ad- | 
venture, and leading you to be satisfied 
on the safer and the humbler ground of 

our present operations. It goes to 
establish the general lesson of prudence, 
amid all the cases and varieties of hu- 
man life. He is the prudent man who 
makes his experience of the past guide 


THE TEMPTATION. 


[SERM. 


and enlighten his conduct as to the 
future. Now, what is the knowledge 
which his past experience confers upon 
him? Why, it tells him what is the 
ordinary course of Providence in such 
and such circumstances—what is the 
general method of God’s administration 
in the world—what are the laws of ex- 
ternal nature, and what are the general 
laws of human life, and of the human 
mind. Now, I can conceive a man of 
misled and fanatical piety to say—Oh, 
I have nothing to do with prudence, I 
have nothing to do with the work of 
calculating, upon appearances, and upon 


‘ordinary courses, and upon natural laws 


and natural tendencies—my confidence 
is in God. And thus throwing himself 
loose from all the restraints which bind 
down the conduct of grave, and caleu- 
lating, and judicious men, he may ex- 
pose religion to contempt, and himself 
to all the mischiefs of blind and unad- 
vised temerity. Now look to the conduct 
of the Saviour, when asked to throw 
Himself from a pinnacle of the temple. 
What was it that restrained Him from 
doing so? It was just His calculation 
upon a yeneral law in nature. He 
acted upon His unfailing experience of 
the descent of bodies that had no mate- 
rial support to rest upon; and to flee in 
the face of this law, which the artful 
deceiver would have persuaded Him to 
be an act of pious confidence in God, 
He felt to be a tempting of God, and 
not a trusting of Him. 

Now, my brethren, take this to your- 
selves. Apply this lesson to thet ite 
and other of the ordinary and established 
courses of Providence in the world. Ad- 
mit experience, and your knowledge of 
the past, and your general acquaintance 
with nature and with human life into 
your calculations on the line of duty; 
and let me see you exemplify that most 
respectable of all combinations—the 
combination of good sense with a most 
humble and earnest and devoted piety. 
It is evident that this lesson opens a 
fine field for the exercise of wisdom; 
but its applications are far too manifold 
for being detailed in all their circum- 
stances and in all their variety from the 
pulpit. What is it that any of you are 
now hesitating about? Is it about the 
disposal of one of your family in the 


way of settling him in the world? I 
trust you have it more at heart that he 


should obtain the bread which endureth | 


than that he should obtain a large por- 
tion of that bread which _perisheth. 


Well, you perhaps think that this is. 


your real feeling and principle on the 


subject ; but have you brought prudence. 
and your experience of human life to. 
bear upon the question—what would be 


the best situation for the endurance and 


the growth of Christian principle within | 
Don’t you know what the gene- | 
of the human | 


him? ] 
ral laws of nature an 
mind are in this matter ?—that the gen- 


eral effect of exposure is to blast the. 
tender infancy of that principle Which | 
you may have put into the youthful 
bosom—that the general effect of evil. 


communication is to corrupt good man- 


ners—that in committing him to the 
broad surface of a world lying in wick- | 
edness, there are some situations which | 


| 


al] experience attests to be more adverse 
to virtue than others? And are you 
admitting all this into your calculation ? 
or, instead of a single eye upon the 
eternity of him whose guardianship God 
hath committed to you, is your single 
eye fixed on his earthly aggrandize- 
ment ?—and as to any faint wish you 
may feel for his being provided on the 
other side of death with a house that is 
aot made with hands and eternal in the 
heavens, do you get it all disposed of 
by bidding God bless him, when the 
weeping boy takes his departure, and 
he is followed to the door by the tears 
and wishes of his family ? 

Ah! my brethren, if prudence has 
not gone along with piety, I call upon 
you not to trust to its fervent aspirations. 
This young man who is leaving the 
home of his father, and his heart swell- 
ing with every Christian purpose, and 
all the lessons of a mother’s watchful 
and affectionate jealousy fresh in his 
bosom, may perhaps, by the ill-judged 
choice of these very parents, have been 
set on a career which will bring him 
back to the mansion of their old age, an 
alien from his God, and a graceless 
scorner at every Christian feeling which 
exists in his family. He may be the 
object of your daily prayers. and not an 
evening devotion may be lifted up to 
heaven without the remembrance of him 

68 


THE TEMPTATION. 


537 
| who is in a distant land ; but the tidings 
of his fall may reach you—and in the 
melancholy result of a soul irrecoverably 
lost in wickedness and estrangement 
from his Maker, you may at length be 
made to feel what a sad error it was to 
tempt God, while you thought you were 
piously and affectionately trusting in 
Him. ‘This is one out of many applica- 
tions. The Bible is so pregnant with 
meaning, that I might linger for months 
on the wisdom of a single chapter with- 
out exhausting it. Ponder its passages. 
Be assured that the devoted study of a 
whole life will not carry you to the limit 
of all that instruction which is to be 
gathered out of it. It may ‘be your 
daily exercise: and yet every day some 
new and wondrous thing may evolve to 
the mind which humbly commits itself 
to the guidance of that enlightening 
Spirit who makes use of the word as His 
instrument. Let it be your exercise on 
some portion of every day ;vand let the 





/ remembrance of it be your delight all 


the day long; and however darkly or 
awkwardly you may go about the work 
of applying these Scriptures to your eve- 
ry-day and familiar concerns at the first, 
by reason of use, and with the blessing 
of God, your senses will be exercised to 
discern both the good and the evil. 

I trust I may have said enough to 
convince you of the respect that you owe 
to the ordinary course of nature and of 
Providence. Christ has given the sanc- 
tion of His example to this respect by 
the answer wherewith he repelled the 
second instigation of the tempter. He 
would not cast Himself down from the 
pinnacle of the temple, because He was 
aware of the law of gravitation ; and 
He felt that a rash presumption on His 
part, as if God would interpose to sus- 
pend this law on His behalf, would be 
not to trust God, but to tempt God. In 
the same manner, my brethren, what- 
ever be the situation you are placed in, 
the first and the paramount maxim is at 
all times, and in all circumstances, and 
in defiance of all hazards, to do that which 
is your commanded duty; and I have 
already showed, how our Saviour’s treat- 
ment of the first recorded temptation 
could be brought to bear upon this les- 
son. But, on the other hand, if there is 
no requirement calling upon you to make 





538 


the exposure of yourself to those evils 
which nature and experience point out 
to be the consequences of such and such 
a line of proceeding—then it is a tempt- 
ing of God to take that line; and there- 
fore it is that a Christian, anxious to 
know the path in which he should go, 
will not only learn diligently the will 
of God as put down in His word, lest he 
should transgress against God by an 
act of disobedience, but he will also 
gather the indications of God’s will con- 
cerning him from the circumstances in 
which he finds himself placed, and from 
the general effect of such circumstances, 
lest he should tempt God by an act of 
presumption. Whatever, my brethren, 
be the actual situation of any man among 
you, you stand upon safe ground when 
you say, Here I am by the will of God; 
and should any inducement be held out 
for you to change your situation, or 
should you deliberate upon the question, 
whether it would be right to make such 
a change or to adopt such a step—then it 
is not.merely your prudence, but your 
duty, to make your experience of the 
past, your acquaintance with the general 
course of things, to bear upon the ques- 
tion. For this purpose you take a sur- 
vey of all the circumstances, and you 
calculate the effect of such and such mea- 
sures, and you frame your calculation on 
your recollections of the ordinary pro- 
cesses of nature and experience. Does 
what I know of my habits make it ad- 
visable for me to change my present line 
of employment, or to continue it? Does 
what I know of my talent for usefulness 
tell me that it would be more productive- 
ly employed in the present field of my 
exertions, or in another which the course 
of things has laid before me? Does what 
I know of the difficulties of one situation 
and the facilities of another, enable me 
to make up my mind on the question— 
whether I ought or ought not to decide 
upon a transference? ‘These are ques- 
tions which a man, with no other prin- 
ciple in his bosom but the love of God 
and the love of men, may sit in delibe- 
zation over. They may be the calcula- 
tions of a wise and reflecting experience ; 
but this does not hinder them from being 
also the calculations of religious duty. 
It gives a mighty clearness and com- 
mand to the question, when he is sit- 


THE TEMPTATION. 


[SERM. 


ting in judgment over a ‘conjuncture 
which he did not create himself, but 
which was brought by the uncontrolled 
course of events and of circumstances to 
his door. If he is sure that in no pre- 
vious step of the affair he has tempted 
God by any wilful act of his own, then 
the case that is before him may be taken 
up as a case presented by God to his 
notice; and he must have a care, now 
that it is presented to him, lest he tempt 
God by deciding the matter in opposi- 
tion to the light of experience, or the 
established courses of nature and of 
providence. My object in all this, my 
brethren. is to reconcile you to a lan- 
guage which some hold to be fanatical. 
You may have read or heard of people 
trying to find out what were the lead- 
ings of providence in a given case, and 
to collect the will of God from a delib- 
erate survey of the circumstances by 
which they were surrounded. Now, 
my brethren, I maintain that it is a 
very high point of Christian wisdom to 
decide this question; and it is a ques- 
tion upon which the most grave, and 
diligent, and I will also say it, the most 
judicious exercises of thought have been 
bestowed. It is very true that it is a 
wisdom which the world knoweth not, 
and into which the men of the world 
cannot enter; and when they hear of 
a call. or a leading of providence, they 
conceive the idea of a direct inspiration, 
and that the man who professes to act 
upon such a call has dreamed a dream, 
or seen a vision. or heard the utterance 
of a voice, or felt an impulse upon his 
imagination and his heart. There is 
nothing of all this, my brethren, in 
these matters. ‘The man does no more 
than give God the homage of being the 
author of all that actually is, and he 
ascribes his present circumstances, and 
inducements. and prospects, to the will 
of God. He knows that it is his duty 
to pray for wisdom, and in everything 
to make his requests known unto God; 
but he expects no supernatural intima- 
tion upon the subject—he only brings 
all the wisdom he has gotten to bear on 
the question of whether it will be most 
for usefulness to take this one step or 
that other step. In deliberating on 
this question, so far from overlooking 
the natural and accustomed tendencies 


xxi. | 


of things, ne makes them the ground- 
work of his calculation. He is not so 
presumptuous as to expect that God 
will change the course or suspend the 
laws of nature for his special behoof, 
and so he feels that it would be as 
much tempting God to act in opposi- 
tion to any of the known laws, whether 
of matter or of mind, or to any one of 
the established connections between 
means and their ends—as our Saviour 
would have felt that He had _ been 
tempting God had He been acting in 
opposition to the known law of the de- 
scent of heavy and unsupported bodies. 
All this he deliberates upon lest he 
should throw himself from the pinnacle 
of safety; and thus it is, my brethren, 
that, in attempting to decide what are 
the leanings of Providence, he who is 
derided by the world for the weaknesses 
of a superstitious fancy, may in fact 
have combined all the judgment and 
intelligence and respectable accomplish- 
ments of a discerning and clear-sighted 
man, with all the devotedness of a hum- 
ble and submissive piety. 

Verses 5-8.—* And the devil. taking 
him up into an high mountain, showed 
ynto him all the kingdoms of the world 
in a moment of time. And the devil 
said unto him, All this power will I 
give thee, and the glory of them, for that 
is delivered unto me; and to whomso- 
ever [ will I give it. If thou therefore 
wilt worship me, all shall be thine. 
And Jesus answered and said unto him. 
Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is 
written. Thou shalt worship the Lord 
thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” 
This, of course, was no illusion of the 
fancy. We mistake the matter if we 
think that our Saviour did not feel the 
force of these various temptations. Had 
He not done so, He would not have 
been in all points tempted like as we 
are. We do not understand the nature 
of the union between the divine and 
human natures of Christ. We must 
just take what we find upon this sub- 
ject, and limit our curiosity by the 
amount of thaf'which is written. And 
this much is certain, that He suffered 
being tempted—He had all the pain of 
a struggle to undergo; and it was by 
obedience in the face of difficulty, it was 


THE TEMPTATION. 


ee eee 


539 


by a high and sustained exercise of 
principle in the face of allurements— 
and had the allurements not been felt, 
there would have been no exercise at all 
in the work of resisting them—it was, I 
say, by the force of dutiful sentiment 
rising superior to all that the tempter 
and the world could muster up to oppose 
it, that He earned the reward of right- 
eousness for us, and obtained a highly 
exalted name which we are at all times 
invited to make use of in our prayers, 
and are told that if we do so they shall 
rise to the Father. who hath placed the 
Son on His right hand, with acceptance 
and success. ‘lake this view of the 
matter then—that our Saviour actually 
felt.the force of the allurement; and I 
think that much practical instruction is 
to be gathered from the way in which 
He repelled this temptation of the ad- 
versary. Does it appear from these 
verses that he stopped to gaze on the 
splendid field of contemplation before 
Him? Did He suffer His thoughts to 
linger on the beauties of that airy spec- 
tacle by which he was. surrounded ? 
Did he enter into a deliberate process 
of calculation, or hesitate for a moment 
between the call of duty to God and an 
act of homage to God’s presumptuous 
rival, on the rendering of which all the 
glory which dazzled so magnificently 
around Him was offered to gratify and 
to reward Him? No, my brethren, he 
does not appear to have ventured Him- 
self with the power of this alluring 
representation for a single moment. All 
the strength of His hitherto unconquered 
nature—all the knowledge He had of 
the deceitfulness of the tempter—all 
the consciousness which one would 
think He might have possessed that the 
promise of Satan was but a mockery— 
all this did not embolden Him to the 
measure of looking for one minute to 
the vision of loveliness and of grandeur 
that was thrown around Him; but with 
all the jealousy of quick and instantly 
conceived alarm, does he by one surn- 
mary act dismiss the whole of the flat- 
tering temptation away from Him: 
Get you hence, Satan; I cannot enter- 
tain your proposal for a single moment; 
and with a quotation from Scripture, 
the very measure by which he repelled 


540 


every former assault, does He tell him 
that He must worship the Lord His 
God,.and Him only He must serve. 

This part of the example of our Sa- 
viour gives a mighty reinforcement to 
a prudential lesson often set forth in 
Scripture respecting the management 
of temptations. If He would not trifle 
or delay or make any parrying with 
temptation, how much more incumbent 
is it upon us to be prompt and decisive 
in our measures with it? If even the 
mighty Captain of our salvation would 
not trust Himself with the indulgence 
of that superb spectacle that was so 
much fitted to regale the imagination, 
how much more ought we to dismiss 
from our hearts the countless vanities 
that are ever obtruding themselves and 
offering to take possession of the inner 
man? Let us suit our proceedings to 
the mediocrity of our powers. Let us 
conceive quick and sudden and decisive 
alarm at every approach of every tempta- 
tion. Be assured, my friends, that it is 
far safer to dismiss than to tarry with it. 
Entertain not the deceitful suggestion 
for a single moment; but recovering 
the mind to the tone of principle, by an 
mstantaneous reference to the will of 
God, and the obligations that you owe 
Him, dismiss every evil instigation by 
the sentiment that thou must worship 
the Lord thy God, and Him only thou 
must serve. 

If this were the habit of the mind, 
what a mighty safeguard against temp- 
tations you would carry about with you 
in a world that is full of them. Your 
tempter does not appear to you in a per- 
sonal form; but his agency on your 
hearts is not the less real on that ac- 
count—nor is the answer less applicable 
from your mouth than it was from the 
mouth of the Saviour, Get thee hence, 
Satan. Rebuke the evil suggestion 
away from you. Let the mind, by the 
summary act of that authority which 
belongs to it, dismiss from its inner 
chambers every tempting thought, every 
rising inclination to sin; and while 
you are called upon to keep your eyes 
with all diligence from viewing vanity, 
I also call upon you to keep your hearts 
with all diligence from dwelling upon 
vanity. I donot. know a single prac- 
tical direction that you would find of 


THE TEMPTATION. 





[SERM 


more use for keeping you from what is 
evil; and we are told that we should 
cease to do evil, ere we can learn to do 
well. I know not a more efficient les- 
son for carrying along with you from 
the very commencement of the good 
work of sanctification, and for support- 
ing you through the whole of its subse- 
quent stages. Do, my brethren, act 
upon it from this moment. Think of 


the quick and instantaneous movement 


by which our Saviour put the whole of 
that bright and glittering illusion away 
from Him, which formed the grand con- 
clusive attempt of the adversary to se- 
duce Him from His principles. Go, 
and do likewise. Keep no measures 
with temptation. Your safety lies in 
shunning, and in shutting it out, and 
in dismissing it from your thoughts. 
When any gay or flattering imagina- 
tion gets hold of you—be it wealth, to 
seduce you from your integrity, or to 
withdraw you from the present path of 
your humble and sober-minded, but 
safe and cautious employments, to some 
track of ruinous ambition—or be it 
pleasure. to steal your heart to some 
object of idolatrous affection—or be it 
fashion, to tempt you to some act of un- 
lawful conformity to a world lying in 
wickedness — think, my brethren, of 
your calling—you are the servants of 
the Lord; and be ever ready to dismiss 
the evil suggestion with the answer—I 
must worship the Lord my God, and 
Him only I must serve. 

Thus much for temptation in the 
general. But let me say a few words 
on the particular temptation that is here 
recorded. One might think that it 
would be difficult to find a parallel to 
this temptation in the familiar and 
every-day history of men—that for this 
purpose it would be necessary to go to 
him who stands on the very pinnacle 
of human society—to the single man 
of the world, before whom ueth the 
avenue which promises to conduct him 
by some strides of mighty and unprin- 
cipled violence to universal monarchy. 
Such a man there latefy was, who as- 
pired after all the glory of all the king- 
doms upon earth; and in the track of 
his guilty ambition many, and very 
many, were the acts of homage which 
he rendered to the god of this world. 


Xx1.] 


In the history of this man, we see at 
once the power of Satan’s temptations 
and the treachery of his promises; but 
we mistake it if we think that the pass- 
age of our Saviour’s history which is 
now before us does not admit of a wider 
application. The enlightened Discerner 
of the human heart will perceive the 
identity of its passions under all the 
variety of rank and of circumstances. 
To regale the appetite for distinction, it 
is not necessary that man should aspire 
above the level of this widely extended 
world: it is enough that he gain an 
eminence above the level that is im- 
mediately around him. His own con- 
fined neighbourhood may be all that he 
knows, and to him it is just as animat- 
ing a field of ambition as the world is 
to the mighty conqueror; and therefore, 
in the very humblest walks of society 
we may behold the busy working of the 
same pride, and the same passion, and 
the same keen and interested rivalship, 
and the same ardent struggle for supe- 
riority, that we read of in the higher 
game of victory and of empire. And 
thus it is that the temptation of glory 
may be carried down to the very basis 
of society. Men measure themselves 
by themselves, and compare themselves 
with themselves; and thus it is that 
when walking the streets, we may be- 
hold the gait and bearing of conscious 
elevation among the most tattered of 
our labourers, as well as among the 
wealthiest of our citizens—for pride 
may dwell in a cottage as well as in a 
palace. It sits on the workman’s bench 
as well as on the monarch’s throne, and 
struts driving a flock of sheep as well 
as at the head of a victorious army. 
But in all these cases, the glory we 
aspire after is a glory we seek from one 
another. It is the notice, and the hom- 
age, and the admiration of men. It is 
not. the glory that cometh from God 
only, but in giving way to it, we make 
an. idolatrous defection from the great 
God of heaven and of earth; and. to 
make good this defection, the god of this 
world plies all his artifices, and brings 
the flattering prospect of distinction to 
play upon. our fancy, and arrays the 
perishable splendours of earth with a 
- charm and a stability which do not be- 
long, to them; and throws into the far 


THE TEMPTATION. 


541 


and distant back-ground of our contem- 
plations the certainty of that death 
which, in a few short years, will blow 
to pieces the whole of his glittering in- 
fatuation, and the loathsomeness of that 
grave of which one and all of us must 
be the dumb and the mouldering occu- 
piers. Oh! how many resign them- 
selves to his flattering illusions, and 
crowd the broad way in pursuit of them |! 
And, keenly driven along by some airy 
spectre, the sight of which inflames their 
ambition, there is no room in the hearts 
but for the employment of following 
after it; and the will ,of God, and the 
service of God, and the worship of God, 
are all trampled upon and renounced in 
the daily and hourly incense which they 
offer to some cheating idol of this world. 
Money, which purchaseth all things, 
purchaseth distinction also; and this 


forms the most frequent and powerful 


instrument by which the great adver- 
sary seduces his thousands and tens of 
thousands from their loyalty to the God 
of heaven. With this he bribes the 
vanity of the young in the shape of 
costly and glittering ornaments—and 
who can tell how many have been be- 
trayed by the power of this temptation 
into the surrender of that most graceful 
of all ornaments—that unsullied purity 
which when cruelly pressed and pre- 
vailed upon has often turned her who 
was at one time the pride and the pro- 
mise of a parent’s old age into a shame 
and a bitterness which have brought 
down his gray hairs with sorrow to the 
grave. With this he has turned the 
commercial world into one vortex of 
driving and impetuous rivalship; and 
though it be well that each should put 
forth the naight of his hand to the bid- 
den duty of providing for the things of 
his own house, yet it is not well if, in the 
pursuit of a keen and straining ambi- 
tion, simplicity and godly sincerity have 
been banished from the transactions of 
business—it is not well if the seducing 
object of a commanding fortune and a 
princely retirement, which lies in the 
vista of futurity before him, shall tempt 
him to a life of perpetual homage to the 
glory and good of this world—it: is not 
well if the prospect of some earthl: 

eminence, from which the hand of deat 

will so soon pull him down, shall, be 


542 


spread before him with all the gay col- 
oring of a painted screen, to hide from 
his view the unfading glories of eternity. 
And surely, surely, my brethren, if 
glosses and plausibilities and dexterous 
concealments of the truth to secure the 
advantage in a present bargain, or give 
a favourable turn to the present negotia- 
tion—if there be any of you, my friends, 
(and I pray there may be none.) who 
have so far fallen from the lofty princi- 
ples of a pure and unbending integrity, 
as to think that all these may be looked 
upon with levity and connivance, and 
that the communications of yea, yea, 
and nay, nay, when heard in the market- 
place are to be laughed at as the oddities 
of Quakerism—why, my brethren, in 
this case I must say that you are not 
walking as strangers and pilgrims upon 
the earth—that you have got among the 
wiles and entanglements of him who is 
the arch-enemy of human souls, by 
whose fascinations it is that you are as 
effectually surrounded by the mockery 
of an ideal representation, as the mind 
of our Saviour when the panorama of a 
brilliant and alluring world was spread 
before his contemplation: and you, in 
pursuit of some airy castle which you 
may never reach, and which at all events 
you must soon abandon for the coldness 
and corruption of the sepulchre, are doing 
homage to the father of lies, and strew- 
ing the altar of his idolatry with those 
offerings of the ruined soul and its un- 
done eternity, which he exacts from his 
worshippers. 

[ cannot bring my observations on 
this wonderful passage of the Bible to a 
close without remarking that one har- 
monious lesson may be gathered out of 
the three temptations by which our Sa- 
viour was assailed. The first is, that 
no prospect however terrifying, no pain 
however urgent, no suffering however 
intense, shall tempt me to do that which 
is undutiful and against the will of 
God, for the purpose of escaping the 
evils of that situation in which I actu- 
ally find myself Duty must be done 
at all hazards—the law of God must be 
acted upon at every venture—I must 
not, by any deed of mine, try to help 
myself out of any distress by the viola- 
tion of any of the commandments; and 
under every temptation, the most press- 


’ THE TEMPTATICN., 


[SERM. 


ing that can be conceived, it is my part — 
to obey God though He should multiply 
upon me the severest dispensations, and 
to trust Him though He should slay 
me. Conceive a man, then, in a given 
line of employment, and under tempta- 
tions to take the advantage which others 
take, and to alleviate the difficulties of 
his situation by resorting to the same 
habits and practices of dishonesty which 
are frequent among others; and, if act- 
ing on the moral to be drawn from the 
first of the three temptations, he will 
struggle with every hardship rather than 
surrender one iota of his integrity to 
soften them, and putting his confidence 
in God, will say, that man liveth not by 
bread alone, but by every word which 
proceedeth out of His mouth. But you 
will say, though he should do no dis- 
honest thing to make his present situa- 
tion a comfortable and productive one, 
might not he change that situation— 


might not he give up the present, with 


all its certain evils, for another which, 
for anything he knows, might be free 
from the hardships that are now press- 
ing upon him? Might not he specu- 
late, and experiment, and venture on 
some bold and decisive steps to have 
himself extricated from his present de- 
gree of poverty or inconvenience or suf- 
fering? Now, if he act on the moral 
that is to be gathered out of the second 
temptation, he will make this a question 
of prudence—he will no more commit 
himself to uncertainty in the face of 
known principle, of experience, than our 
Saviour committed Himself to the air 
in the face of the known law of gravity 
—he will mingle the caution of wisdom 
and of observation with all his delibera- 
tions upon this subject; nor by calcu- 
lating upon any wanton or hazardous. 
enterprise, will he offer to tempt the 
Lord his God. Now, graft upon these 
two morals the one that is to be gather- 
ed from the third and last temptation, 
and you will moderate to nothing a 
man’s ambition about a place of emi- 
nence and distinction in society. It is 
very true that on him may be performed, 
or on him there may not be performed, 
the truth of the saying—that the hand 
of the diligent maketh rich; but riches 
are not what his heart is set upon. He 
looks to another home, and his eye is 


xxi. | 


filled with the splendours of another in- 
heritance. He acts on the great though 
simple prospect of eternity; and on the 
whole you behold a man giving himself 
to the faithful and diligent and high- 
principled discharge of all the duties 
which belong to the line that Provi- 
dence has assigned to him, and making 
no rash or unadvised attempts to change 
it. His heart is free from that ambition 
after the glories or the distinctions of 
this world which pierceth man through 
with many sorrows, and has blasted 
many a precious influence of the word 
of God, by the cares of life on the one 
hand, or the deceitfulness of riches on 
the other. Such, my brethren, I con- 
ceive to be the clear line of duty that 
lies on every individual, and I leave it 
to you to conceive what a Christian and 


SERMON 


THE EMBASSY OF RECONCILIATION, — 


543 


good and orderly aspect it would throw 
over the face of the country, were this 
to become the practical and the univer- 
sal moral of all its people—were the un- 
bridled rage of commercial enterprise to 
be tempered by the lessons of this pas 
sage. We would see less of goading 
ambition for a high eminence of wealth 
among the citizens, and less of that 
blind and impetuous and miscalculating 
confidence which tempts so many to 
acts of desperation, and less of that re- 
laxation of principle and virtue that 
leads to so many a splendid and guilty, 
and at length shipwrecked enterprise, 
signalized by the ruin of many families, 
while another pheenix with gay and 
golden plumage rises from the ashes of 
the devouring conflagration. 


XXII. 


The Embassy of Reéonciliation.* 


“ Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you 
in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”—2 Corintuians v. 20, 


In the prosecution of the following 
discourse, I shall first consider the en- 
treaty of the text—“ Be ye reconciled 
unto God,” as addressed to you by the 
beseeching voice of a fellow-mortal ; 
and in the second place, I shall con- 
sider the warrant given to him by God 
to address you in‘this manner—and in 
virtue of which warrant it is not only 
he who beseeches yot, but God, or 
Christ, the Son of God. who beseeches 
you by Him-—* As though God did 
beseech you by us: we pray you in 
Christ's stead, be ye reconciled unto 
God.” 

Let me, then, in the first place, con- 
sider this entreaty of the text as coming 
upon you through the beseeching voice 
of a fellow-mortal.. It came in this 
shape from the mouth of Paul to the 
people whom he addressed in this epis- 
tle. It comes in this shape from the 
mouth of a Christian parent to those 
children for whose eternal salvation he 


* Preached in the Calton, Glasgow, 15th February, 
1815. 


is bound to labour, and to put forth his 
every power of earnest and affectionate 
exhortation. It comes in this shape 
from one friend to another, in that high- 
est exercise of friendship, when man 
presses upon his fellow the care of his 
eternity. And it comes in this shape 
at the moment in which I am now ad- 
dressing you, when, knowing as I do 
that there is an offer within the reach 
of one and all of you, the neglect of 
which will sink you into endless and 
unutterable wo, and the acceptance of 
which will invest you with all the 
splendours and all the ever-during felic- 
ities of Paradise—I urge it upon your 
consideration in all its magnitude and 
in all its seriousness [ call upon you 
to come out from the wretched aliena- 
tion of nature—to give up your enmity 
against that Being who has your fate 
and your fortune in His hand, the word 
of whose power can crush you into an- 
nihilation, or transfer you to that awful 
region where each unrepentant sinner 
shall take up his bed in hell, and a 


544 THE EMBASSY OF 
blackening despair spreads itself over 
the whole multitude of the damned, 
because that each and all of them know 
that a whole eternity of vengeance is 
in store for them: Ah! my brethren, 
knowing, as every true minister of the 
gospel does, that all who refuse the 
overtures of the gospel are speeding 
their certain way to this scene of gloomy 
and interminable suffering; and know- 
ing farther, that all of them have pardon 
within the reach of their offer, and re- 
pentance within the reach of their call, 
and the Spirit to strengthen them for 
the work of repentance within the reach 
of their prayers, and eternal life as the 
gift of God through Jesus Christ our 
Lord, within the reach of their accept- 
ance—how is it possible in these cir- 
cumstances, unless he had a heart cruel 
as death and hard as the nether mill- 
stone, how is it possible that he can 
refrain from pouring all the tenderness 
of his sympathy upon them, from knock- 
ing at the door of every bosom, and 
praying them to mind the things which 
belong to their peace? and should he 
have already set before them the terrors 
of the law, how can he refrain from 
telling them that these terrors are only 
in reserve then for those of them who 
refuse His kindness now—that their 
full terror and severity are to be dis- 
charged in the other world only on 
those of them who in this world turn 
from the tenderness of his entreating 
voice; but that the time in which he 
is now standing among them is the ac- 
cepted time, that the day on which he 
is now preaching to them is a day of 
salvation? It is thus impossible that 
any minister who feels as he ought can 
abstain from doing among his hearers 
what Paul did before him, from _ be- 
seeching them even in his own name, 
and with the anxiety that he feels for 
them in his own heart, to be reconciled 
unto God. : 

But, my brethren, there is no need 
of any reconciliation among two parties 
if there is no quarrel between them; 
and you may perhaps ask—what is the 
quarrel between you and God? Who 
is it among you, I would ask in return, 
that puts this question? Is it possible 
that:the thief can put this question in 
the.face of a.commandment so pointed 


RECONCILIATION. ‘ [SERM. | 
and so intelligible as this—Thou shalt 
not steal? Is it possible that the 
swearer can put this question in the 
face of a threat so plain and so appal- 
ling as this—The Lord will not hold 
him guiltless who taketh His name in 
vain? Is it possible that the Sabbath- 
breaker can put such a question as im- 
plies him not to be conscious of any 
quarrel that God can possibly have 
with him, in the face of the command- 
ment uttered in thunder from Mount 
Sinai—Thou shalt sanctify the Sab- 
bath-day, and keep it holy? Is it pos- 
sible that the lar can put such a ques- 
tion in the face of that solemn charge 
delivered by God Himself against false 
witness? Is it possible that the drunk 
ard or unclean person can put such a 
question when, in the book of Revela- 
tion, it is expressly said that all such 
shall have their part in the lake which 
burneth with fire and brimstone? And 
once for all, how is it possible that 
each or any of these can ever take it 
into their heads that God has no quar- 
rel with them in the face of the testi- 
mony handed down to us by the holy 
apostle about the works of the flesh—a 
testimony delivered in language too 
plain to be put away, when he says of 
adultery, and fornication, and unclean- 
ness, and lasciviousness, and hatred, 
and strife, and drunkenness, and revel- 
lings, and such like, that they which do 
such things shall not inherit the king- 
dom of God? I cannot conceive, then, 
that a man guilty of any one of these 
things should have any doubt of God 
having a quarrel with, him—should 
have any doubt of its being necessary, 
in order to obtain the friendship of 
God, that this quarrel be made up by 
an act of reconciliation—should have 
any doubt that some great movement 
must be made by him in the matters 
of religion ere he die ;—and that unless 
the offer of the gospel be taken by him 
—and no man does take this offer who 
does not forsake his sins and betake 
himself to a thorough course of repent- 
ance and new obedience—I say, I do 
not feel that I stand under any neces: 
sity of convincing these that there is at 
this moment a breach between them 
and God. I am sure that if they are 
not seared as with a red-hot iron, they 


XXII. | THE EMBASSY OF RECONCILIATION. — 545 


will not leave off the consideration of | God—if it is not love to Him, and a 
what I am now urging without their | principle of submission to His law, and 
consciences rising upon them and charg- | such a sense of His authority as reaches 
ing them with their enmity against God; | to the very thoughts and desires and af- 
and upbraiding them with their acts of | fections of the inner man that keep you 
wickedness in the past time of nere,| from them. You, my brethren, if you 
lives; and whispering to them on the are not in Christ—if you have never 
bed of restlessness where they lie, that | kaown what it is to be reconciled to God 
if they follow not the call of reconcilia- through Him—if you are strangers to 
tion which has been sounded in their His atonement, and to the influences 
ears, they are treasuring up to them-| of His promised grace—the distinct 
selves a more furious wrath and a charge [ bring against one and all of 
heavier condemnation. Yes! and let) you—let one man be more decent than 
this conscience make them as uneasy his neighbour, and more sober than 
as it may, it is but the foretaste of that his neighbour, and more honest than 
coming hell where there is a fire that! his neighbour as he may—the distinct 
is never quenched, and the corrosion of | charge I have to make, and I refer to 
a tormenting worm that never dies. your own consciences whether the 

But, my brethren, the men whom [I | charge be a true one or not, is, that you 
am most desirous of convincing at pres- | want this love to God—you do not pos- 
ent that there is a real quarrel between | sess this principle of submission to His 
them and God, and a real necessity for | law in all things—you have not by na- 
an act of reconciliation to make the ture such a sense of His authority as 
quarrel up, are those who can say with | reaches the thoughts and desires and 
the young man in the Gospel—My con- affections of the inner man. In many 
science does not upbraid me with any outward things you may be better than 
of these offences: | am not a drunkard,| your neighbours, and your conduct be 
I am not a thief. I am not a frequenter | free from those disgraceful outbreakings 
of any of the haunts of profligacy : [ at- which give to men the character of 
tend ordinances, and there is a decency being the lowest and the most profli- 
that spreads itself over the whole of my | gate in society; but I lay it to your 
Sabbath history; I give. what I can consciences, that though such polluted 
afford to my poorer brethren, and I am} streams as those do not come out of 
neither an extortioner nor an adulterer, } your hearts, it is only because the chan- 
even as some others who are standing | nels through which they would run are 
beside me, and on whom let the charge | dammed up by other restraints than by 
, and | love to God and a regard to the honour 
not to me, does it apply. Now, what [| of the Lawgiver. In spite of all these 
maintain—and J am anxious to make | restraints, the fountain is polluted 
you all understand it—is, that there is, heart is evil—you have, no taste for 
not a human being on the face of the |God—you, every hour of the day, forget 
earth—there is not a single individual | God, and prove how little you care for 
of all its families—there is not one soli-| him. You care for other things more 
tary descendant among the generations, than you care for Him. W hat these 
of the fallen Adam, who, if he have not! other things are will differ among differ- 
obeyed the call of my text. is not at this | ent individuals—just as idolaters some- 

moment at open war with the God who /| times worship one idol and sometimes 
created him. Your conscience inay not | another. What the idol is which steals 
upbraid you with any of the visible | your affections from your lawful Mas- 
transgressions which I have now enu-| ter, [ know not: it may be the de- 
merated in your hearing. <A sense of | ceitful wiles of this world among capl 
decency may keep you from them—the | talists and thriving tradesmen ; it may 
natural feeling of what is becoming and | be the love of distinction among those 
upright may keep you from them—the | of most strength and most fame and most 
fear of disgrace, or a constitutional deli-| talent among you; it may be the van- 
cacy of sentiment, may keep you from | ity of a fine appearance among men- 
them: but still the quarrel remains with | servants; it may be the vanity of dress 

69 























546 THE EMBASSY OF 
among maid-servants; what the precise 
thing is I know not; but whatever it 
is, there are thousands against whose 
characters the world can allege nothing, 
but who suffer some idol, some vanity, 
some earthly and perishable object, to 
take away their affections from God. 
Whatever the thing be, their heart is 
with that thing, and not with God. God. 
who says, Give me thy heart, is robbed 
of His dues. He sees His children al- 
together taken up with His gifts, and 
altogether thinking not and caring not 
about the Giver. Their affections are 
after another object than God—their de- 
sire is towards another house than that 
place where His honour dwelleth. Give 
them all they wish for on this side of 
the grave, and the other side of the 
grave—to which, whether they will or 
not, they are so fast hastening—takes 
up scarce any of their attention at all, 
and they are never easier that when 
they are never thinking of it. This, 
my brethren, is the description of the 
great bulk and majority of this world’s 
population. I am not saying that they 
are all notorious, and profligate, and dis- 
reputable characters; but I am say- 
ing that they are forgetters of God; 
and just asif He had no existence at 
ail, do they walk after the counsel of 
their own hearts, and in the sight of their 
own eyes. 

Now, my brethren, do you call this a 
trifle? Did you never think there was 
anything so very bad and so very en- 
ormous in all this? [ am sure you 
would think and feel it to be no trifle 
at all, did you just get the same treat- 
ment from another that you give to the 
God who formed you. Did any of you 
feed 2 neighbour, and clothe him. and 
give him every one article of mainte- 
nance; and after all you had done for 
him, did you come to the knowledge 
that this said neighbour—quite happy in 
eating your bread. and in wearing your 
raiment, and in making use of all the 
comforts and necessaries you bestowed 
upon him—did not. at the same time. 
carry in his heart the slightest regard 
to you the giver of all this. Did you 
come to know, that, so far from this, he 
made no scruple of just doing what he 
liked best himself, and asked not and 
cared not what it was that you would 


RECONCILIATION. [SERM. 
like him to do. Did you come to know 
that he could not bear the thoughts of 
you and was never in greater ease of 
mind than when he drove you out of 
his recollections altogether.—Why, you 
would think this hard treatment indeed, 
from the man who lived because you 
furnished him with all the means of 
living, who was kept up in a decent 
appearance among his neighbours be- 
cause you supplied him with all that 
he stood in need of, who got from you 
the food that sustained him, and the 
clothing that covered him, and the 
fuel that warmed him, and the house 
that lodged him. Well, then, just give 
the same fair dealing to God. Ts it not 
hard, and exceeding hard—will it not 
appear a foul and unnatural crime in 
the high records of heaven—will the 
pure eye of angels who love God, and 
delight to serve Him, not see it to be a 
great and a crying deformity in ever 
one of your characters, that God should 
give you every breath, should minister 
to you every comfort, should hold you 
in life, and’ in all that is necessary to 
life, and that you all the while, with 
your forms of prayer, and your decency 
of ordinances, and your being as good or 
better than your neighbours, and som? 
few such points and accomplishments 
of character as these. should at the same 
time give God no place in your hearts, 
and have. all your affections turned in 
dislike or at least in indifference, away 
from Him? 

I can assure you, my brethren, that 
whatever you may think of this, God 
Himself thinks it no trifle to be treated 
in this manner. He claims your love, 
He requires it—He says that forgetful- 
ness of Him is one of the most hell- 
deserving crimes in the awful catalogue 
of human guilt—He expressly says, in 
the book of Psalms. that the nations 
who forget Him shall be turned into 
hell; and He bids you consider, ye who 
forget God lest He tear you in pieces, 
and there be none to deliver. This is 
the quarrel, my brethren, between God 
and man; and there is not a single in- 
dividual of the species, who, if he re- 
main what nature made him, is not in- 
cluded in it. “There is none that un- 
derstandeth ; there is none that seeketh 
after God.” This is the mighty burden 


XxIt. | THE EMBASSY OF 
of the controversy He has with you— 
this is the breach between Him and 
the sinful creatures He has formed— 
this the awful gulf of separation that 
_ cuts off every one of us from the Father 
of our spirits; and to. you whom [ am 
now addressing, to every one of you 
who are still strangers to the faith of 
the gospel, and have not sought, and 
have not found, all your peace with the 
Lawgiver, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord—TI say that to you there is a most 
pressing need of reconciliation; I be- 
seech you to take to it immediately. 

If on some night of darkness I met 
the friend of my heart walking the road 
which led to a precipice, I should tell 
him of his danger, and point out the 
safe direction for him to take himself to. 
If he refused to hear me, I should re- 
peat to him my earnest assurances of 
his danger. If he would not believe 
me, I should insist with all the tones 
of truth and tenderness. If he per- 
sisted in his obstinacy, I would posi- 
tively attempt to force him away from 
the path he was walking in. If I was 
not strong enough, [ would fall on my 
knees to him—I would try to overpower 
him by my entreaties and my warnings 
—I would do all that friendship could 
do to turn him from his infatuation; 
nor would I leave him till either I had 
accomplished my purpose, or he had 
falien a victim to his rashness and his 
folly. In like manner does the Chris- 
tian minister open his eyes upon the 
people whom he addresses. In this 
dark world the road to heaven is often 
not perceived, and not walked in. Christ. 
says—‘I am the way; by me if any 
man enter in he shall be saved. Let 
him believe my testimony—let him 
listen to my calls—let him submit him- 
self to my gospel—let him make him- 
self over to me, as the Saviour whose 
blood has redeemed him. and whose 
Spirit if he pray for it in faith, will 
renew him and make him meet for 
the inheritance. Let him do this, 
and he is reconciled unto God, and 
set on the only way to a happy etern- 
ity.” Well, then. does the ambassador 
of Christ see any of you in this way ? 
fulfilling the desires of your own hearts 
—laying up for the world, and making 
no provision for that eternity which is 





RECONCILIATION. 547 
coming so rapidly upon you—continu- 
ing in your iniquities, instead of turn- 
ing from them unto Chirst—building 
yourselves up in the deceitful security 
that you will get to heaven with a few 
moral decencies, that make you pass in 
society with a character as fair and as 
respectable as that of your neighbours 
around you, at the very time that God 
is forgotten, and His love has no opera- 
tion within you, and His way of sal- 
vation by His Son is not acknowledged 
or walked in, and His law, however 
much it may be fulfilled in some ex- 
ternal: points, is not present to the heart, 
and brings not the whole body, soul, 
and spirit to the captivity of His obedi- 
ence. If this be the situation of any who 
now hears me, then has your minister a 
right to say that you are walking ina 
miserably wrong way, and to beg that 
you will no longer walk in it. Turn 
ye, turn ye to the direction of safety ; 
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
ye shall be saved. This is the only 
name given under heaven. If this 
name be not cordially embraced—if you 
do not rest for salvation upon him—if 
you do not build your hope of forgive- 
ness upon His. sacrifice—if the faith 
that is in you do not work a good evi- 
dence to the operation of that Spirit 
which is promised to all who believe, 
to turn them from al} sin, and lead them 
to the love and the practice of all right- 
eousness ;—if this be indeed your state, 
you are out of the way—you are still in 
the dangerous situation of being unre- 
conciled to God. In this situation yow 
minister meets with you. and Sabbath 
after Sabbath you are within the reach 
of his hearing. and he tells you of your 
danger. He looks upon you as his 
friends and acquaintances ; and how, I 
ask you, can he bear it—that people 
whom he meets every day on the road 
—people whom he calls upon in their 
houses—people with whom he should 
like to exchange visits—people whose 
health and prosperity he rejoices in, and 
whose sickness or misfortunes would 
give him pain ;—how can he bear to 
think that they should be walking, and 
not be warned of it, in the broad way 
which leadeth to destruction ? 

Shall he feel a sympathy for the little 
ailments and calamities of this life, and 


548 


shall he stand unmoved when he sees 
you. by your indifference to the truth, 

y your neglect of the .great salvation, 
by your resistance of every offer to be 
reconciled to God in Christ, walking so 
miserably astray and running on the 
path that leads to evil, and heaping up 
to yourselves wrath against the day of 
wrath, and revelation of the righteous 
judgment of God? It may be often, or 
it may be seldom, that your minister 
and you meet with each other; but 
when you do meet, it is on terms of 
peace and civility—every appearance of 
cordiality in your salutations, and every 
appearance of kindness in your mutual 
compliments and inquiries. How, then, 
can he bear to see any of you posting 
with all speed to a condemned and 
undone eternity? Though he should 
himself get to the heaven he is aspir- 
ing after, is that any reason why he 
should tolerate the idea of you, my 
friends, persisting in enmity with God 
—of the hell that will be your portion, 
and the gulf of everlasting separation 
that will then be placed between him 
and you? It were only the want of 
faith which could make him sit at ease 
under a contemplation so painful as the 
one that I am now presenting; but 
knowing, as he does, the awful realities 
of the other world, he were untrue to 
his Master's cause if he did not bring 
every engine to bear upon you; and 
though with a voice more tender than 
human sympathy ever prompted, he 
called on you from this pulpit to turn 
and be reconciled—though he went from 
house to house, and with all earnestness 
beseeched you to be reconciled—though 
he fell on his knees before you, and en- 
treated you with tears to mind the things 
which belong to your peace lest they be 
forever hid from your eyes—he would 
just be doing what Paul did before him, 
when he prayed his people in Christ's 
stead to be reconciled unto God. 

You will observe, my brethren, that 
if God refused to receive those who call 
upon Him—if He still stood out on the 
dignity of His law, and said, I will not 
éome to terms with those who have bro- 
ken and insulted it—if there was any 
unwillingness on His part to make it 
up with you—then it might be vain for 
me, or for any minister, to call on the 


THE EMBASSY OF RECONCILIATION. 


[SERM. 


one party to be reconciled, while the 
other party would not admit of reconcili- 
ation.. But this is not the state of the 
case ; God is willing. He Himself made 
and proclaimed the way of return by 
which sinners have free access to His 
throne; and all who will are invited to 
come and drink of the waters of life 
freely. Christ, the way, is offered unto 
all; and it was God who so loved the 
world, that He gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
should not perish, but have everlasting 
life. Go not, then, to charge God with 
unwillingness to be reconciled. The 
want of willingness is on your part, and 
notupon His. Come unto Him through 
the appointed Mediator. I beseech you 
todo so. Take to the faith and the fol- 
lowing of Christ, and you are safe. If 
your reconciliation to God have not yet 
been made, it is because you are un- 
willing. The unwillingness lies with 
you; and do not charge it upon God, 
whe calls on every one of you to repent, 
and be reconciled, and live—who swears 
by Himself that He has no pleasure in 
the death of the sinner—who, for the 
very purpose of delivering you from this 
death, sent you a mighty Redeemer, 
who gave this account of Himself, that 
He came not to destroy men’s lives but 
to save them. By Him the ransom of 
iniquity is paid, and a way of accept- 
ance 1s opened, and everything is made 
clear with God, and there is free access 
to Him through a Mediator; and [ again 
pray you in Christ’s stead, that ye be 
reconciled unto God. 

I have left myself little time for the 
second head of discourse, in which I was 
to lay it before you, that while I be- 
seeched you with my own voice, God 
beseeched you by me. It is He who 
has given the warrant for all this free 
and earnest invitation. My urgency on 
this subject is the urgency of Him who 
has commissioned me to present to you 
the word of this great salvation. JI am 
only the instrument of God in this mat- 
ter; and what I wantto press upon you 
is, that He, the mighty Sovereign of 
heaven and of earth, is at this moment 
employed, through His ministers and 
His Bibles, not merely in threatening, 
not merely in commanding, not merely 
in issuing His solemn proclamations 


Xx1t. ] 


from hence, that all men should repent ; 
but, more wonderful and more affecting 
than all this, He puts Himself forth in 
the attitude of beseeching you to be re- 
conciled. He feels toward you all the 
longing anxiety of a father bereaved of 
his children, and He implores your re- 
turn to Him. He beckons your ap- 
proach to Him—He waves the signal 
of a most gracious and willing invita- 
tion, and says, “ Look unto me all ye 
ends of the earth, and be ye saved.” He 
tries to soften the sinner’s heart by the 
tenderness of His imploring voice, and 
prays him to be reconciled. 

And be assured, my brethren, that 
however much I beseech you, however 
earnestly I have your salvation at heart, 
however anxiously I implore you to 
return from the way of hostility against 
God, to the way of friendship and of 
peace with Him—be assured that I fall 
far short of the earnestness, and sincer- 
ity, and anxious desire after you of my 
Master, Christ Jesus. He is invisible 
in the heavens; but it is your part, 
though you see Him not, to believe in 
Him ; and it is only the want of belief 
that can take away from the force of 
‘this affecting argument. Were He to 
appear in person amongst you, vested 
with the whole power of heaven and 
earth, mighty to save, and entreating 
~you to return, and to take to Him as 
your Redeemer, and to be seconciled 
unto God, who, if you believe in Christ, 
will not impute unto you your tres- 
passes—I say, were He to do all this, 
could you possibly stand out against 
such powerful entreaties and solicita- 
tions? And what else, then, is it but 
the want of faith which makes you to 
refuse me now, when you have not 
Christ in person to entreat you? If 
you really believed that He was in 
heaven, and that, He was there manag- 
ing for the interests of all who put their 
trust in Him, and that He was carrying 
on a government upon earth, and em- 
ploying ministers and Bibles as agents 
for gaining subjects to Hrs kingdom, 
and for turning perishing sinners to the 
love and obedience of His Gospel, then 
would you feel that it was not I who 
beseeched you, but Christ who beseech- 
ed you by me. Now, I call on you to 
believe this. On the authority of my 


THE EMBASSY OF RECONCILIATION. 


549 


text I call you—Christ speaketh there, 
and what he utters is. an actual prayer 
to you, that you would be reconciled 
unto God. And what is more, God 
speaketh there—I and the Father am 
one, says the Saviour; and such. is the 
unity of mind and of purpose between. 
them, that a call from Christ is a call 
from God. And accordingly; what do 
we read in the text? God beseeching 
you—the Lord of heaven and earth de- 
scending to beseech you—He whom 
you have so deeply offended, whom in 
the past time of your lives you have 
forgotten every hour, whose holy law 
you have trampled upon and put far 
away from you—He before whom you 
stand with a load of sins calling for 
vengeance, in what situation does the 
text represent Him? The mighty God 
who fills all space, and reigns in maj- 
esty over all worlds, standing at the 
door of the sinner’s heart, humbling 
Himself to the language of entreaty, 
beseeching the sinner to come and be 
reconciled to Him, begging for admit- 
tance, and protesting that if you only 
come unto Him through Christ, He is 
willing to forgive all, and to forget all. 
Oh! my brethren, ought not this to 
encourage you? Yes! and if you re- 
fuse the encouragement, it ought also 
to fill you with terror. The terrors of 
the Lord are doubtless sometimes preach- \ 
ed to you, and I am now preaching to 
you the goodness and the tenderness of 
the Lord; but be assured that this 
goodness, so far from setting aside the 
terrors. will, if despised and rejected by 
you, give them their tenfold aggravation. 
Oh! what an awful weight of condem- 
nation it brings on a sinnevr’s head, that 
he persists in his iniquities in the face 
of so much goodness—in the face of all 
the opportunities that are held out to 
him of obtaining pardon for the whole 
guilt of the past, and strength for the 
whole reformation of the future—in the 
face of the repeated calls with which 
God, by His Bibles and His ministers, 
is at all times plying him. And be 
most certain, my brethren, that if this 
gospel be not the savour of life to you, 
it will be the savour of death to you. 
It will add to the weight of your reck- 
oning that you have sinned, and per- 
sisted in sin, and kept in a state of re- 


550 


bellion against your Maker, in the midst 
of despised warnings and slighted invi- 
tations, and unheeded encouragements, 
and neglected opportunities. Happy 
these who are constrained by all this 
encouragement ; but what will become 
of those who reject it? What will be- 
come of you, if the call and entreaty I 
have now sounded in your ears shall 
be found to have had no influence upon 
you? Look forward to the day of 
judgment. and when the high matters 
of God and man are reasoned over there, 
tell me which of the two shall have the 
plea upon their side? Tell me what 
you can possibly say then, if you refuse 
now the voice of a God beseeching you 
to be reconciled? You must stand in 
silence and confusion; but He will be 
justified when He speaketh, and be 
clear when he judgeth—“ I proclaimed 
a law, and you brake it; I appointed 
a Mediator, and you refused him; I 
knocked at the door of your hearts, and 
you gave me no admittance ; I beseech- 
ed you to be reconciled, and you turned 
away from me.” Oh! hold out no 
longer, my brethren! Harden not your 
hearts as in the provocation! Stay not 
till a more convenient season. Listen 
to Him now, I say, and make not your 
hard and impenitent hearts still more 
hard and more impenitent by refusing 
Him. 

And now, my brethren, what use are 
you to make of all this that has now 
been delivered in your hearing? Often, 
it is to be presumed. has your minister 
urged the terrors of the Lord upon you; 
and let me tell you with all earnestness, 
that if you keep on the ground of rebel- 
lion against God, or even forgetfulness 
of him, you are on ground, where if 
death find you, it will hurry you into 
the presence of an incensed Lawgiver, 
from whence you will pass into the 
dreary and interminable sufferings of a 
hopeless eternity; and who is there 
among you stout-hearted enough to 
dwell with the devouring fire? who of 
you can choose to lie down amongst 
everlasting burnings? But I have 
this day told you more than this.—I 
have attempted to assure you, that God 
has no pleasure in so awful a catastro- 
phe; and while you are in the land of 
living men, he plies you with the calls 


THE EMBASSY GF RECONCILIATION. 





[SERM. 


to return, and with the assurances of 
pardon. He is willing at this mo- 
ment to receive every one of you: He 
holds out His Son as a propitiation for 
the sins that are past: He invites you 
to come and have all the guilt of your 
manifold iniquities washed out in the 
blood of the Lamb: He has already 
given His son for you; and as He has 
done so much, He is still ready to do 
more—to give you through that Son a 
full forgiveness, and an abundant sup- 
ply of the Spirit, and the effectual wash- 
ing of regeneration, and such a renewal 
by the power of the Holy Ghost, as 
will make you from this time forward 
hate all sin, and aspire after the love 
and the practice of all righteousness. 
How is it possible that you can stand 
unmoved under the power of an argu- 
ment so touching? Do you know the 
situation you occupy? Do you know 
that death, which has already swept 
away so many generations from the 
face of the world, will in a few little 
years make sure work of every one of 
you, and lay you side by side in the 
sepulchres of loneliness and corruption ? 
What are you about, ye living men, 
that you are so losing time, and so 
throwing your opportunities away from 
you, and so keeping wedded to this 
wretched world that is soon to be burnt 
up, and to those pleasures of sin which 
are but for a season, and will leave 
nothing but remorse and painfulness 
behind them? Do you remember the 
parable of the fig-tree, on which fruit 
was sought and no fruit was found, and 
it was proposed that it should be cut 
down, for why should it cumber the 
ground which it occupied? But the 
proposal was put off for a little time; 
and it was dressed, and dug about, and 
had manure put around it—and for an- 
other year it was left alone, that if it 
should bear fruit, good and well, but if 
not, then let it be cutdown. | And this, 
my brethren, is the interesting point at 
which you stand. You are still let 
alone; and God has given you health 
and opportunity to come within the 
reach of another invitation; and the 
arguments of the gospel have once more 
been applied to your consciences; and 
you have no pretext whatever for not 
stirring yourselves, for God has declared 


¢ 


XXIL ] THE EMBASSY OF 
His perfect willingness to receive every 
one of you. if you come unto Him in 
faith and in repentance. And should 
there be no fruit from all these repeated 
applications—should all the earnest- 
ness that has been spent upon you have 
been given to the wind—should .the 
word heard be like the water spilt upon 
the ground,eand have fallen without 
efficacy on hearts blinded by the god 
of this world, and utterly indisposed to 
abandon its vanities and its pleasures— 
should the voice lifted up in your hear- 
ing fall as fruitlessly on your ears as 
the voice lifted up in a wilderness— 
then, my brethren, for anything you 
know, the last experiment has been 
made upon you, and the last arrow has 
been shot at you, and the last call of 
tenderness you may ever hear has 
reached your senses, while your heart 
has remained as shielded and impene- 
trable as before ; and the kind Saviour, 
who is still as merciful a High Priest 
as ever—seeing the determined obsti- 
nacy, and self-deceit, and incurable de- 
lusion of your souls, may be saying of 
you what He said of Jerusalem, “O 
ye people, ye people, I would have 
gathered you together as a hen. gather- 
eth her chickens under her wings, but 
ye would not; O had you minded the 
things which belonged to your peace, 
but now they are forever hid from your 
eyes.” 

Let me hope better things of you, my 
brethren. Let me hope that all this 
tenderness is not lost upon you. Let 
me trust that in many a soul of many 
a hearer there is a movement towards 
God. I see not the heart of any of you; 
but if a single sigh after repentance is 
now lifting from any one of them, if a 
single purpose of repentance is now 
forming—though I see it not, God sees 
it; and with all the eagerness of a father 
after one of his lost and alienated chil- 
dren, will He descend from the eminence 
of His glory, and run to meet you. 
though you be far off from Him, and 
stretch out the hand of encouragement 
to receive you, and welcome you with a 
thousand greetings to the household of 
the faithful, and perfect that which con- 
cerns you, and minister abundant pardon 


through the blood of Him who has 





RECONCILIATION. 55k 
magnified His law and made it honour. 
able, and sustain you by the constant 
supplies of His grace, and by the daily 
refreshment of that Spirit who can alone 
strengthen you for all obedience. Do,’ 
my brethren, stir yourselves to the 
mighty work of repentance. It is com- 
paratively but a poor argument to allege 
that by so doing you will send joy into 
the heart of your minister, or of any 
fellow-mortal—you will rejoice the hearts 
of angels who are now standing on the 
high eminences of heaven, and casting 
their benevolent eyes on you, and would 
smile complacency on the prospect of 
another penitent to join their happy 
number; and there is not one of you, 
though worthless as the worst of sinners, 
and poor as beggary itself, who may not, 
this very day, by the softening of his 
heart into the repentance of the gospel, 
spread joy over the wide circle of hea- 
ven’s benignant family. 

And having asked you to begin the 
good course, let me conclude with the 
positive requirement which our Saviour 
Jaid upon the people He called, even at 
the very outset of their discipleship. 
In coming to Christ, forsake all. You 
cannot too early begin the work of strug- 
gling with your iniquities. Nay,if you 
are not so struggling, the invitations of 
the gospel have had no effect upon you. 
He who turneth to Christ, turneth from 
his iniquities. Cleanse your hands, ye 
sinners—give up all that your conscience 
tells you to be wrong—seek after all 
that your conscience tells you to be 
right—enter from this moment into a 
course of decided turning from all 
wickedness, and of decided earnestness 
in all the new obedience of the gospel. 
God will not despise the day of small 
things. He will not turn in indifference 
away from your first attempts to seek 
after Him, if haply you may find Him. 
Cherish no doubt of your forgiveness 
through the merits of His Son—if you 
betake yourselves to the leaving off of 
all that He bids you leave off and to the 
doing of all that He bids you do; and 
could we only get the matter begun, 
with sucha principle and such a purpose 
at the bottom of it, would not be 
afraid of your’stopping short: but, com- 
mitting yourselves to the guidance of 


552 


Him who is able to strengthen you for 
the doing of all things, you would 
abound more and more every day, and 
experience all those changes of soul 


SERMON XXIII. 


THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SECULARIZED. 





* 


[SERM. 


and of spirit, as well as of body, which 
make you meet for the Jerusalem 
above. 


The Christian Ministry Secularized.* 


* Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that 
we should leave the word of God, and serve tables.”—Acrts vi. 2. 


Ir is a very possible thing to denounce 
a vicious system without bearing hard on 
so much as one of the individual agents 
of that system. It is a very possible 
thing to attack a great public corrup- 
tion—ay, and that, too, with all the hon- 
est vehemence of sentiment, while all 
that vehemence of passion which dis- 
charges itself in the severities of pointed 
and personal application, may be utterly 
kept away. Surely it is quite possible 
to be on the one hand zealously affected 
in a good thing, and on the other hand 
to bear in constant and effectual remem- 
brance that the wrath of man worketh 
not the righteousness of God. May we 
therefore never let down our zeal for the 
good work of a most desirable and 
much called for reformation, and at the 
same time never suffer the entrance into 
our bosoms for an ingredient so hateful 
as contempt towards any one established 
dignity, or the virulence of exasperated 
feeling towards the perversities or the 
wilful blindness of any one individual. 

I hold it fair to say, in relation to the 
case now before us, that were I at all 


* After his settlement in Glasgow, Dr. Chalmers was 
excessively annoyed by the accumulation of all kinds of 
secular business which was laid upon the city ministers. 
Resolved to proclaim as widely as possible the wrongs 
thus done to the Christian ministry, and at least to 
work out a way of deliverance for himself, he carried 
the subject to the pulpit. He had intended to preach 
twice upon this topic. The effect of the first sermon— 
the one now published—was such that he was dis- 
suaded from pursuing it—abundant assurances being 
tendered to him that he would not be so interfered with 
in the future. So strongly, however, had he felt upon 
this matter, that I find among his manuscripts, the in- 
troduction to a sermon intended to be a sequel to the 
one now published, written about the time that he was 
appointed to the Church of St. John’s, and which he 
had purposed to deliver to the Tron Church congrega- 
tion before parting from them. Owing, I presume, to 
an urgency similar to that which had been brought to 
bear upon him previously, his intention in this second 
instance also was laid aside. 


disposed to wreak anger or give vent to 
any one of my vindictive sensibilities on 
this subject, I should be at a loss to find 
out the human being on whom I could 
make to rest the burden of my indigna- 
tion. I positively cannot tell who have 
the blame of this mischievous system. 
Not altogether the existing generation 
of official men—for they received it as 
a legacy from their predecessors. Not 
altogether the senators of our land, who 
are so, heedlessly accumulating upon the 
ministers of religion such an oppressive 
load of signatures and certificates, and 
other uriderling secularities, ‘as, if per- 
sisted in much longer, will bury the sa- 
credness of the character altogether, and 
transform him who sustains it into a 
mere agent of police or of civil regula- 
tion—for the unseen field of our labours 
is too far removed from their habitual 
observation to make them at all aware 
of the mischief they are inflicting on 
the character of our people, and the 
best interests of our country. Not alto- 
gether the ministers themselves, whose 
task it is to watch over their assigned 
depaitment, and in the duteous spirit 
of loyalty, to tell our state, our govern- 
ors, and our patriots, how hurtfully this 
invasion bears on the usefulness of their 
order; for in truth the progress of the 
mischief has been most msinuating—it 
has come upon us in the way of grad- 
ual accumulations. At each distinct 
step it wore the aspect of a benevolent 
and kind accommodation to the humbler 
orders of society—and so the matter 
has swelled and multiplied till the up- 
shot of this kind and benevolent system 
has been that in our larger towns it has 


' effected, as to every moral and every 


XXu. ] 


spiritual purpose, an entire separation 
of the minister and the people from 
each other; and the man whose busi- 
ness it was in the olden time to prepare 
for your Sabbath instruction, and to 
watch over your souls. and to hold indi- 
vidual conference with every earnest 
inquirer, and to ply his daily attendance 
upon your death-beds and by his yearly 
presence to shed a holy influence over 
your streets and your families, and to 
brandish all that spiritual armour which 
the great Master of the Church has put 
into his hand for reclaiming the profli- 
yate and overawing the audaciously 
wicked, and arresting the mad career 
of licentiousness, and so manifesting the 
truth to the consciences of men as to 
force their willing consent to the faith 
and the obedience of the gospel—the 
man, | say, who had this for his busi- 
ness then, has got other business now 
to engross and to occupy him. The 
kind and the benevolent system has put 
other services into his hand, and he is 
far. too busy with the performance of 
these modern and superinduced duties, 
which have been grafted on our clerical 
office, to have either time or strength for 
the drivelling exercises of a former gen- 
eration—and so it is, my brethren, that 
now-a-days among the other boasts of 
this enlightened age, you will find he 
can boast a chamber which has upon it 
as much of the important aspect of busi- 
ness as any of you. and he is as deeply 
involved in the whirl of secular employ- 
ments, and is as constantly beset with 
the urgency of most clarmorous demands 
on his time and his attention; and that 
mner apartment which was wont to be 
the scene of meditations sustained for 
hours together, and out. of which the 
well-built argument, and the powerful 
remonstrance, and the pathetic expostu- 
lation, issued forth in a refreshing stream 
of Christian and moral influence upon 
the people. is now laid open to the din 
of every invading footstep, and has all 
its thoughtfulness and all its tranquillity 
chased away from it. and the whole of 
that machinery by which the products of 
the mind are accumulated through the 
week, and brought forth with the return 
of every hallowed day to nourish and 
to edify a congregation, is now most 
cruelly broken up. Ay, my brethren, 
70 


THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SECULARIZED. 


558 


and if you have any sympathy at all 
with the woes of that dark period in 
history when the unlettered hordes of 
the North burst on the polished domains 
of art and of learning, and in one tide 
of ruthless mvasion laid low all the ves- 
tiges of refinement, and bore down all 
the aspirmg energies of genius, then 
let me point your attention to another 
invasion just as Gothic in its character. 
though not so widely visible in its dis- 
play—an invasion by which the door 
of many an intellectual retreat is now 
no longer a security to its occupier, and 
the truly British maxim of every man’s 
house being his castle is trampled upon 
in all the wantonness of an arbitrary 
and assumed discretion by the constitu- 
ted authorities of the land. Yes! and 
be they the rulers of our kingdom or 
the rulers of our cities who give their 
seal to these distressing inroads on the 
peacefulness of a studious habitation. 
all the power which sanctions so glaring 
an injustice, and all that pageantry of 
official grandeur by which the solemn 
air of legality is thrown around it, only 
serve to confirm the resemblance which 
has now occurred to me; nor, should 
this shameful claim be persisted in, shall 
I ever cease to look upon it as the tri- 
umph of strength over principle, the 
mournful ascendency of vulgar power 
over the high prerogatives of the under- 
standing. 

In the prosecution of the following 
discourse, I shall first submit to your 
attention a short narrative of all the ex- 
actions and the services by which the 
ministers of the gospel in this our land 
are withdrawn from prayer and from 
the ministry of the word. I shall, in 
the second place. attempt to demonstrate 
the evils of this system; and, in the 
third place, to recommend some pallia- 
tives by which, till it be conclusively 
done away, a defence against these evils 
might be reared in behalf of our parish 
and our congregation. 

I proceed, in the first place, to the 
narrative. 

Among the people of our busy land, 
who are ever on the wing of activity, 
and whether in circumstances of peace 
or of war, are at all times feeling the 
impulse of some national movement or 
other, it is not to be wondered at that a 


554 


series of transactions should be con- 
stantly flowing between the metropolis 
of the empire and its distant provinces. 
There are the remittances which pass 
through our public offices from soldiers 
and sailors in the service of Government 
to their relations at home. There are 
letters of inquiry sent back again from 
their relations. There is all the cor- 
respondence, and all the business of 
draughts, and other negotiations which 
come upon’the decease of a soldier or a 
sailor. There is the whole tribe of hos- 
pital allowances. There is the payment 
of pensions. and a variety of other items, 
of which I-am sorry that I have kept no 
register, but which even though I had, 
it might have been improper to sus- 
pend your attention any longer upon so 
strange and tedious an enumeration. 

Now, here lies the essence of the 
mischief. The individuals with whom 
these different transactions are carried 
on need to be verified. They live in 
some parish or other—and who can be 
fitter for the required purpose than the 
parish minister? He is, or he ought to 
be, acquainted with every one of his 
parishioners; and this acquaintance, 
which he never can obtain in towns but 
by years of ministerial exertion amongst 
them, is turned to an object destructive 
of the very principle upon which he was 
selected for such a service. It saddles 
him with a task which breaks in upon 
his ministerial exertions—which widens 
his distance from his people, and in the 
end makes him as unfit for certifying a 
single clause of information about them 
as the most private individual of his 
neighbourhood. 

Yet so it is. The minister is the or- 
gan of many a communication between 
his people and the offices in London— 

‘and many a weary signature is exacted 
from him, and a world of management 
is devolved upon his shoulders ;. and in- 
stead of sitting like his fathers in office, 
surrounded by the theology of present 
or of other days, he must now turn his 
study into a counting-room, and have 
his well-arranged cabinet Defore him, 
fitted up with its sections and its other 
conveniences for notices and duplicates, 
and all the scraps and memoranda of a 
manifold correspondence. 

But the history does not stop here. 


THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SECULARIZED. 


[SERM. 


The example of Government has de- 
scended, and is now quickly running 
through the whole field of private and 
individual agency. The negotiation of 
the business of prize moneys is one 
out of several examples which occur to 
me. The emigration of new settlers to 
Canada is another. It does not appear 
that there is any act of Government au- 
thorizing the agents in this matter to fix 
on the clergy as the organs, either for 
the transaction of their business, or the 
conveyance of their information to the 
people of the land. But they find it 
convenient to follow the example of 
Government. and have accordingly done 
so—and in this way a mighty host of 
schedules and circulars and printed 
forms, with long blank spaces which 
the minister will have the goodness to 
fill up according to the best of his 
knowledge, come into mustering com- 
petition with the whole of his other 
claims and his other engagements. It 
is true that the minister in this case 
may decline to have the goodness; but 
then the people are apprized of the ar- 
rangement, and trained as they have 
been too well to look up to the minister 
as an organ of civil accommodation, will 
they lay siege to his dwelling-house, 
and pour upon him with their inquiries, 
and the cruel alternative is laid upon 
him either to obstruct the convenience 
of his parishioners, and scowl them 
away from his presence, or to take the 
whole weight of a management that has 
been so indiscreetly and so wantonly 
assigned to him. In the painful strug- 
gle between the kindliness of h#s nature 
and the primitive and essential duties 
of his office, he may happen to fix’ on 
the worse and not on the better part. It 
was not reason that even for such a ser- 
vice I should leave the ministry of the 
word and prayer—but in an unluck 
moment I have done so, along, I believe, 
with the vast majority of my brethren ; 
and out of the multitude of other do- 
ings from this source of employment 
alone, which are now past and have 
sunk into oblivion, the simple achieve: 
ment of seventy signatures in one day 
is all that my dizzy recollection has 
been able to keep and to perpetuate. 

If for the expediting of business we 
are to be made free with even by p= 


xxi. ] 


vate individuals, it is not to be won- 
dered at if charitable bodies should at 
all times look for our subserviency to 
their schemes and their operations of 
benevolence. When a patriotic fund. 
or a Waterloo subscription, blazes in all 
the splendour of a nation’s munificence 
and a nation’s gratitude before the pub- 
lic eye, who shall have the hardihood to 
‘refuse a single item of the bidden co- 
operation that is expected from him ? 
Surely such a demand as this is quite 
irresistible, and accordingly from this 
quarter too heavy a load of consulta- 
tions and certificates, with the addt- 
tional singularity of having to do with 
the drawing of money, and the keeping 
of it in safe custody, and the dealing 
‘out of it in small discretionary parcels, 
according to the needs and circum- 
stances of the parties—ail, all is placed 
upon the shoulders of the already jaded 
and overborne minister. 

But the greater number of these em- 
ployments, it may be thought, origin- 
ated in our state of war—and now that 
war is at an end, they will cease with 
the final winding-up of the old system. 
Oh, no! my brethren. This great 
event which has brought peace: to the 
whole country, has brought po peace 
to the minister. In some unlucky hour 
or other the Secretary-at-War seems to 
have had a conversation with the Secre- 
tary for the Home Department. and to 
have supplied him with the mischiev- 
ous hint of how vastly convenient a set 
of people were we ministers. I do not 
know if this be the exact account of the 
matter; but thus much I know, that 
some such hint has been given, and 
that the hint is most assuredly acted 
upon—for the practice has now fairly 
got in, when the right man cannot be 
found for doing any piece of provincial 
business, just to hinge it all upon, the 
minister. Ay, my brethren, and should 
you hear of your minister. sitting in 
judgment on the qualifications of hawk- 
ers and spirit-dealers, and of certifying 
accordingly, you must just put it down 
among the first-fruits of that precious 
system which has lately been devised, 
and is now in a State of hopeful perse- 
verance, for conducting the matters of 
our home administration. 

I know not where this is to end, or 


THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SECULARIZED. 


555 


what new and unheard of duties are 
still in reserve for us; but thus much I 
know, that they are in the way of an 
indefinite accumulation. I have heard 
obscurely of some very recent addition 
to our burdens, but of what it particu- 
larly is I have not got the distinct or 
the authentic information. I am not 
civilian enough to know if even an Act 
of Parliament carry such an omnipo- 
tence along with it as to empower this 
strange series of wanton and arbitrary 
infringements on the individual hours 
and liberties of clergymen; but I am 
patriot enough to feel that the rulers of 
our country are, for a trifling accommo- 
dation which they should contrive to 
find somewhere else, bartering away 
the best interests of its people—that 
through the side of its public instruct- 
ors they are reaching a blow to the 
morality and principle of the common- 
wealth—that by every such impolitic 
enactment as I have now attempted to 
expose, they are slackening the circula- 
tion of Christianity and all of its health- 
ful and elevating influences amongst 
our towns and our families—that they 
are sweeping away from the face of 
every larger city the best securities for 
order and contentment and loyalty ; nor 
should I wonder if, in some future pe- 
riod of turbulence and disorder, they 
shall rue the infatuation which led 
them so to tamper with the religion of 
our land by the inroads they are now 
making on the duties, and the cruel 
profanation they are now inflicting on 
the sacredness of its officiating minis- 
ters. 

I now pass from the imposition laid 
on the clergy by government to another 
set of impositions still more grievous 
and intolerable-—impositions, in virtue 
of which the city of our habitation 
would strip its ministers of all the com- 
fort and all the privileges of a home— 
impositions by which you would turn 
what ought to be a life of tranquillity 
into a life of tumult and distraction— 
impositions by which you would com- 
mit to your Christian teachers the 
burden of services which others should 
have borne, and would offer to degrade 
them into a truckling subserviency 
upon your accommodation, and would 
do what the sons of liberal and gener- 


556 


ous accomplishment lift up their hand 
in astonishment at being told of —would 
force an unhallowed entrance into the 
retreats of contemplation, and beset the 
study of a clergyman with a tribe of 
invasions so boisterous and unseemly 
that you would refuse an admittance 
for them into your own counting-houses. 
I will not detach a single feature from 
this representation—nor shall I ever 
cease to assert for the labours of the 
mind that respect and that pre-eminence 
which have been hitherto withheld from 
them. I know it well that upon this 
subject there is a very heavy and a 
very general obtuseness, that the pro- 
cesses of thought are not understood by 
those with whom we have to deal, that 
they do not readily perceive the ex- 
tent of that mischief which might be 
wrought by a single interruption—how 
one painful collision with some clam- 
orous and _ dissatisfied petitioner is 
enough to turn the inner-chamber of 
the mind into a chaos of disorder, and 
to unstring fora day the whole of its 
delicate machinery. All this, if poured 
into the ear of a literary man, or ad- 
dressed to a reading ana a cultivated 
public, would meet at once their dis- 
cernment; and in their intelligent sym- 
pathy some recompense would be gotten 
for the sufferimg complained of. But 
O, how cold and how comfortless it 
feels when, in the work of vindicating 
the prerogative of intellectual labour, 
one cannot but perceive that he is lift- 
ing up his voice in a wilderness—that 
the whole stream of his utterance on 
the subject plays upon the hearer like 





that an aspect of dull and unmeaning 
wonderment is all the effect which your 
demonstrations can produce upon them 
—that no access can be opened up for 
your argument to understandings which 
look as if they were overborne by the 
leaden influences of a Beotian atmo- 
sphere—and how freezing the mortifi- 
cation is, none but he who has experi- 
enced it can tell, when, on pleading this 
fine and eloquent cause with one on 
whom wealth has conferred its eleva- 
tion, or over whom office has spread its 
sparkling investiture, it is found that all 
is deafened and absorbed by a mind 
steeped in sordidness, or trenched in all 


THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SECULARIZED. 


[SERM. 


the habits and in all the conceptions of 
an invincible plebeianism. 

But let me take up this part of my 
narrative. The benevolent citizens of 
a former age have thrown an illustra- 
tion over this our town by the charities 
they have bequeathed to it, and they 
have devolved upon the clergy much of 
the management and much of the pat- 
ronage of these charities. Now, before 
I proceed a single inch farther in my 
statement, I must here remind you that 
the question at present is not as to the 
benefit or the wisdom of any one of our 
institutions—it is as to the people on 
whom should be placed the burden of 
their manifold and ever-recurring agen- 
cy. The institutions are there, and 


no breath, either of contempt or of ob- 


loquy, from me, shall ever tarnish the 
memory of their founders. I join is- 
sue with the warmest and most enthu- 
siastic admirer of these philanthropic 
endowments, in the principle that. the 
business of every one of them must 
be done—ay, and ought to be done 
most duly, most vigilantly, most consci- — 
entiously. The only alternative be- 
twixt us—and I call your distinct at- 
tention to it—is from what quarter of 
society are the doers to be furnished ? 
Whether it is the time of a clergyman, 
or the time of a private citizen, that is 
to be put into requisition for this ob- 
ject? Is the encroachment to be made 
on the public services of the one, or on 
the business and relaxation, and family 
enjoyments, of the other? The work 
must be done; and the question that 
now lies in the ante-chamber of your 
mind, and for which I am knocking at 
the door, and soliciting you to step “for- 
ward and favour me with a deliverance, 
is, Shall it be done at the expense of a 
great public interest, which is enough, 
and more than enough, to occupy all 
the labourers who are attached to it 2 
or shall it be done, at the expense of a 
little ease and a little conveniency, by 
another set of labourers ? 

This is the state of the competition. 
These are the real terms of the contro- 
versy, of which I shall keep a firm hold, 
and to which, at every step in the pro- 
gress of the argument, I shall never 
cease to recall you. I am aware of the 
clamoring that has been raised upon 


XxI1. ] 


this subject, and of the false glare that 
has been thrown around it to bewilder 
the public understanding, and how the 
minister who proposes to retire from the 
business of a charity is maligned as an 
enemy to the charity itself. and—as if 
he had no other field of usefulness to 
cultivate, and no other walk of duty to 
move in, and no other public service, 
the claims of which laid 1t most imperi- 
ously upon him to husband all the time 
and all the strength that he was master 
of—his individual withdrawment from 
some one subordinate employment. 
which hundreds could manage and could 
execute, is counted upon as a dead loss 
to the good and the interest of society. 
Now, all I aim at by this, my brethren, 
is to summon your minds to the exercise® 
of a just calculation, to look how’ the 
real state of the alternative lies, to show 
you that the charity itself is kept in all 
the entireness of its unbroken claim on 
the protection of the community—that 
the question is not as to the expediency 
of the endowment at all, but it is whe- 
ther for its required agency men are to 
be secluded from a prior field of benev- 
olent occupation, or men are to be taken. 
for the time that might well be spared 
from business and recreation, out of the 
ranks of ordinary citizenship? Whe- 
ther the public, for the presence of the 
clergy in your halls, and their exertions 
in your committees of management, is 
to lose a portion of those peculiar ser- 
vices which, from the days of apostolical 
institution, they are destined to perform ? 
or whether the public, by the substituted 
exertions of others, is, without the ne- 
cessity of so cruel and so injurious a 
sacrifice of its best interests, to reap a 
clear addition to the tribute which it 
draws from the spirit and the patriotism 
of its members ?—in one word, the ques- 
- tion is. whether one good thing shall be 
done for society at the expense of ano- 
ther good thing, or both shall be ren- 
dered to it in the shape of. two distinct 
and unmutilated offerings? When I 
tell you, my brethren, that I am for 
both, and that the whole drift of my 
argument is on the side of two offerings 
instead of one, you will learn how to 
appreciate that misconstruction by which 
the retirement of clergymen from the 
-secularities of public benevolence is in- 


THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SECULARIZED. 


557 


terpreted into a measure of hostility 
against the public weal, in any of its de- 
partments ; and should you, my friends, 
ever hear this good evil-spoken of, you, 
I trust, will not be put out of the plain- 
est maxims of calculation by such an 
outcry as this, with all the currency 
that has been impressed upon it. and all 
the reinforcement it has gotten from the 
ceaseless quavers, both of male and of 
female sentimentalism. 

I trust, therefore. that nothing more 
is necessary for making good this part 
of my argument, than a simple compu- 
tation of the time by which the service 
of these various institutions is made to 
encroach on the other duties and exer- 
cises of clergymen. To this point I 
cannot speak from personal experience ; 
for feeling as I have all along done, that 
the requisitions in question were more 
honoured in the breach than the ob- 
servance, I have declined a compliance 
with them; but I am only speaking, 
you will observe, of the requisitions of 
bodily attendance. I am only speaking 
of that branch of the duties, the perform- 
ance of which calls for the transference 
of his person from one place to another, 
and from the drudgery of which a man 
can defend himself by the simple act, 
or rather by the no act, of sitting 
still. I am speaking of these con- 
stant draughts upon his bodily pres- 
ence, which if he made it a point of 
conscience to answer, he behooved week 
after week, and day after day, to be in 
a state of endless locomotion. As it 
has been my habit to dishonour these 
draughts, I cannot furnish you with 
any estimate of the labour they exact, 
from my actual performance of it; but 
if [ may judge from the exceeding num- 
ber of printed circulars which come in 
by hourly arrival, and keep up upon me 
at all times a close and a well-support- 
ed assault of intimations, I am sure 
though without the experience of any 
actual doings in this way—I am per 
fectly sure that were I to obey the ev: 
ery call of these winged messengers, 
and to ply my weary round among al. 
the committees which they announce tc 
me, and to take my every turn of the 
bidden attendance, and to give my mind 
to every subject of every deliberation we 
are expected to share in, and to bow my 


558 THE CHRISTIAN 
neck to the burden of all the director- 
ships and secretaryships, and president 
and vice-presidentships which are habit- 
ually laid upon us—then, my brethren, 
might I retire from the ministry of the 
word and prayer altogether, and give 
not a single half-hour in the twelve- 


month to the work of Sabbath prepara-. 


tion, and bid a stern refusal to the every 
imploring call of the sick and the des- 
olate and the dying, and bid a final 
adieu to the whole business of family 
and household ministrations—and. after 
all, on the strength just of the perform- 
ances that I have now specified, just of 
the duties and of no other that I have 
now touched upon, just of all that bus- 
tle and variety and exercise, both active 
and contemplative, for which the hospi- 
tals and other charities of the place 
throw open a most ample field to those 
who choose to embark upon it their 
time and their energies—I might in 
this way, I assert, sink all that origi- 
nally belonged to the office of a minis- 
ter of the gospel, and yet earn the char- 
acter among you of being a most labo- 
rious, hard-wrought, painstaking, and in 
a great variety of ways most serviceable 
minister. | 

Now suffer me, my brethren, at this 
point in my narrative, most respectfully 
to charge you with a certain taste and 
tendency of your affections, which to me 
is a phenomenon of human character 
that is inexplicable. What I mean 1s 
the strong and insatiable relish which 
many of you feel, whether upon the oc- 
casions of public business, or of social 
intercourse, for the personal exhibition 
of your clergyman. Now, to minister 
gratification to this said relish, it is not 
necessary that he should help forward 
the business a single inch by his coun- 
sel or his experience. The whole man- 
agement could go on throughout all its 
stages as well without him; and on 
what principle it is that his mere bodily 
presence should add a single whit either 
to the beauty or the completeness of the 
operation, is altogether beyond any tal- 
ent of comprehension that I am pos- 
sessed of. But whether I understand it 
or not, the peculiarity to which I am 
adverting, has, you must permit me to 
say, an undoubted existence among 
you; and to humour it, all that is neces- 


MINISTRY SECULARIZED. 


. [SERM. 


sary is just for the minister to lend out 
his person to the demands which are 
thus made on it—and though silent all 
the while as a statue, a mighty, and 
what appears to me as a mysterious ob- 
ject, appears to be fulfilled just by his 
being there; and when to satisfy my 
unequaled curiosity as to the cause, I 
have ventured to put a question upon 
the subject. I never yet got any further 
within the limits of an adequate answer, 
than merely—that they liked to see 
him; and thus, with no other purpose 
than that of solacing an appetite, for 
which I am sorry I can get no better 
designation than a doating and super- 
stitious fondness, the most deep and 
serious invasions are practised every 
day on the great province of the Chris- 
tian ministry. And every spiritual 
workman in our establishment is sur- 
rounded by requisitions with which, if 
he were to comply to the amount of a 
very small fraction indeed, he would be 
kept in a state of perpetual belabor- 
ment; and it is not so much this un- 
warrantable craving after the man’s 
bodily appearance that I complain of, 
for I most cheerfully admit, that there 
may be much of the milk of human 
kindness in it; and if the cordialities 
of human feeling have any play at all 
within his bosom, it is quite impossible 
to look at such an ingredient as this 
with an aspect of severity. 

But the thing, my dear brethren, 
which grieves me is, that there should 
be among you such a low estimate of 
the value of ministerial time, and of the 
substantial importance of strictly minis- 
terial exercises—that because you do 
not see him at his professional work, 
the work should be counted so light and 
easy that it may be wantonly and at all 
times broken in upon—that because he 
is not compassed about with the insig- 
nia of visible employment, he may there- 
fore be presumed to have little or no em- 
ployment atall; and all this has helped, 
it has most powerfully and materially 
helped, to turn the stream of the demand 
for public agency away from the haunts 
of ordinary merchandise, and to bring 
it in an overwhelming tide of inunda- 
tion on the houses of your clergymen— 
and it has well-nigh swept before it all 
that is primitive and peculiar in the du- 


XXIII. | 


ties of clergymen. It has helped—it 
has most mischievously helped, to efface 
the sacredness of our office, and to trans- 
form him who fills it into a man of mere 
secularities. It has helped—it has most 
woefully helped, to put the religious 
character of our situation into the back- 
ground of public contemplation alto- 
gether. and to substitute in its place the 
labour of such services as others should 
have rendered—the weight of such mani- 
fold and oppressive drudgeries as others 
should have borne. 

But to go on with my narrative. I 
have already said much of the interrup- 
tion and the labour which the public 
charities of the place bring along with 
them ; and yet I have not told you one 
half the amount of it. I have only in- 
sisted on that part of it which takes a 
minister from his house, and from which 
the minister, at the expense of a little 
odium, can at all times protect himself, 
by the determined habit of sitting im- 
movable under every call and every ap- 
plication. All that arrangement which 
takes a minister away from his house 
may be evaded—but how shall he be 

/able to extricate himself from the beset- 
ting inconveniences of such an arrange- 
ment as gives to the whole population ofa 
neighbourhood a constant and ever-mov- 
ing tendency toward the house of the 
minister? ‘The patronage with which 
I think it is his heavy misfortune to be 
encumbered, gives him a share in the 
disposal of innumerable vacancies, and 
each vacancy gives rise to innumerable 
candidates, and each candidate is sure 
to strengthen his chance of success by 
stirring up a whole round of acquaint- 
ances, who, in the various forms of writ- 
ten and of personal entreaty, discharge 
their wishes on the minister in the shape 
of innumerable applications. It is fair 
to observe, however, that the turmoil of 
all this electioneering has its times and 
its seasons. It does not keep by one in 
the form ofasteady monsoon. It comes 
upon him more in the resemblance of a 
hurricane ; and like the hurricanes of 
the atmosphere, it has its months of vio- 
lence and its intervals of periodical ces- 
sation. I shall only say, that when it 
does come, the power of contemplation 
takes to herself wings and flees away. 
She cannot live and flourish in the 


THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SECULARIZED. 


559 


whirlwind of all that noise and confusion 
by which her retreat is so boisterously 
agitated. She sickens and grows pale 
at every quivering of the household bell, 
and at every volley from the household 
door, by which the loud notes of impa- 
tience march along all the passages, 
and force an impetuous announcement 
into every chamber of the dwelling-place. 
She finds all this to be too much for her. 
These rude and incessant visitations fa- 
ticue and exhaust her, and at length 
banish her entirely; nor, will she suffer 
either force or flattery to detain her ina 
mansion invaded by the din of such tur- 
bulent and uncongenial elements. 

But though I talk of cessations and 
intervals, you are not to suppose that 
there are ever at any time the intervals 
of absolute repose. There is a daily vis- 
itation, though it is only at particular 
months that it comes upon you with 
all the vehemence and force of a tor- 
nado. There was of late an unceasing 
stream of people passing every day 
through the house, and coming under 
the review of the minister on their road 
to the supplies of ordinary pauperism. 
This formed part of the prescribed con- 
veyance through which each of them 
trust to find their way to the relief that 
they aspired after. This always secured 
a levee of petitioners, and kept up a 
perennial flow of applications, varying 
in rapidity and fulness with the diffi- 
culty of the times—but never, in the 
whole course of my experience, sub- 
siding into a rill so gentle that\it only 
ministered delight and refreshment to 
the bosom by the peacefulness of its 
murmurs. Oh,no! my brethren—there 
is a something here about which our 
tearful sons and daughters of poesy are 
most miserably in the wrong. I know 
that they have got many fine things to 
say about the minister of a beneficent 
religion having a ready tear for every 
suffering, and an open ear for every 
cry, and room in his house for every 
complainer, and room in his heart for a 
distinct exercise of compassion on the 
needs and the distresses of every afflicted 
family, and an open door through which 
the representations of dejected human- 
ity may ever find a welcome admittance. 
and a free unoccupied day throughout 
every hour of which it is his part to 


s 


550 


act the willing friend of his parishion- 
ers, and to yield the alacrity of his im- 
mediate attentions in behalf of all the 
wants and ail the wretchedness that is 
among them. Yes! all this ought to be 
done, and agents should be found for 
the doing of it. But the minister is not 
the man whocandoit. The minister is 
not the man who should do it. And 
beset as we are on the one hand bya 
hard and a secular generation, who, 
without one sigh of remorse, could see 
every minister of the city sinking the 
spiritualities of his office under the 
weight of engagements which they 
themselves will not touch with one of 
their fingers: and deafened as we are 
on the other hand by the outcry of pul- 
ing sentimentalists, who without thought 
and without calculation would real- 
ize all the folly and all the fondness of 
their fancy sketches upon us, I utterly 
refuse the propriety of all these services 
—and yet proclaiming myself the firm 
the ardent, the devoted friend of the 
poor, do I assert these advocates of theirs 
to be the blind supporters of a system 
which has aggravated both the moral 
and the physical wretchedness of a most 
cruelly neglected population. 

But I must brmg my narrative to a 
close. There are many other miscel- 
laneous items of employment which I 
have neither time nor recollection for 
enumerating. Many of the admittances 
into the charity schools of the place are 
granted upon the recommendation of a 
minister. Many statements about the 
circumstances of people. as if he were 
at all a fit hand for an office so invidious 
and so indelicate, will only be received 
on the attestation of a minister. The 
petitions for exemption from taxes must 
be signed by a minister. ‘The petitions 
for exemption from -road-money must 
be signed by a minister. The former 
of these two last is an imposition laid 
on us by Government—the latter is a 
county or amunicipal imposition. But, 
indeed it is not of much consequence 
to advert to this distinction. Our'state 
and our provincial and our city rulers 
are all equally defaulters in this respect 
—that they have all a most invincible 
appetite for the aid and information of 
the minister—that from every quarter, 
whether of civil or of political regula- 


THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SECULARIZED. 


_SERM. 
tion, there is a constant tendency to 
draw upon the time and the services of 
the minister—that this is fast ripening 
into‘all the stability of a familiar and a 
customary practice—that every year is 
separating the clergy of our Established 
Church by a wider interval from all the 
proper and peculiar duties of their em- 
ployment—and that up from the high 
court of Parliament down to the hum- 
blest corporations of the land, there is a 
general and alarming process now in 
full operation to transform and. to secu- 
larize, and I add, most woefully to de- 
grade us. 

I wili not speak at length just now 
about the mischievous effect of all this 
on the great mass of our population. 
We hold out in their eyes a totally dif- 
ferent aspect from the ministers of a 
former age. We are getting every year 
more assimilated in look and in com- 
plexion to your surveyors, and your city 
clerks, and your justices, and your dis- 
tributors of stamps, and all those men 
of place who have to do with the people 
in the matters of civil or of municipal 
agency. very feature in the sacred- 
ness of our character is wearing down 
amid all the stir and hurry and hard- 
driving of this manifold officiality. 
And thus it is that our parishioners 
have lost sight of us altogether as their 
spiritual directors, and seldom or never 
come to us upon any spiritual errand at 
all—but taking us as they are led to do 
by the vicious system that is now in 
progressive operation—taking us as they 
are led by that system to find us, they 
are ever and anon overwhelming us with 
consultations about their temporalities— 
and the whole flavour of the spiritual 
relation between a pastor and his flock 
is dissipated and done away. There is 
none of the unction of Christianity at 
all in the intercourse we hold with 
them; and everything that relates to 
the soul and to the interests of eternity, 
and to the religious c1re of themselves 
and of their families, is elbowed away 
by the work of filling up their schedules, 
and advising them about their moneys, 
and shuffling-along with them amongst 
the forms and the papers of a most in- 
tricate correspondence. Time, and the 
concerns and the managements of time, 
have left no room for other conversation ; 





56. 


XXIV. j CHRISTIAN MEEKNESS, — 
and our poor perishing and misled peo-' difficulty—and that surely they cannot 
ple almost never think of bending their | trust so firmly to any quarter as to the 
footsteps towards us on any other object ready friendship and the well-exercised 


than that of mere business. But upon 
this object they do crowd around us at 
a rate that is incalculable; and after 
having enumerated the specific purpo- 
ses, for which in compliance with our 
Government and city regulations they 
are led to transact with their minister. 
you are now prepared to understand 
how the general effect of the whole 
system is to make them look up to their 


discernment of their minister. And 
thus it is that the habit is now formed 
of repairing to him with the strangest 
variety of topics, on which he is expected 
to deliberate and to counsel them; and 
this ultimate effect of the system I have 
now been attempting to expose, forms a 
heavy addition to all those distractions 
which harrow up the mind, to all those 
annoyances which surround the person, 


to all those merciless intrusions which 
profane the every retirement, and re- 
duce to a thing of shreds and patches 
the every intellectual process of your 
munisters. 


‘minister as a man of great wisdom and 
information about all the secularities 
they have to do with, and that he is 
competent to furnish them with the 
best advice under every imaginable 


we 


SERMON XXIV. 


Christian Meekness.* 


‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say 
unto you, That ye resist not evil; but whosvever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to 
him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him 


have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give 
. to him that asketh thee; and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye 
have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hatethine enemy. But 


I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, 
and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children 
of your Father which isin heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, 
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love them which love you, what re- 
ward have ye? do not even the publicans do the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, 
what do ye more than others ? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even. 
as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” —Marruew v. 38—48, 


THERE is something in all these pre- | terprises I accede to the demand of 
cepts that is apt to startle and to per-| every borrower, wken—fully bent ov 
plex us. Theselfishness of man. which | the airy magnificence of their own 
naturally is by far the most sensitive | speculations—so many are to be found: 
part of his constitution, takes imme- | who without one sigh of remorse willl 
diate alarm at them, and would reeoil | put the property of others in the most 
from a morality in the observance of | hazardous exposures—why, at this rate 
which it conceives that all the securities | I shall soon exchange that tranquillity 
of justice be hoovedto be broken up, and | which arises from the consciowsness of 
that the interest of every scrupulous | all that belongs to me being in safe 
Christian would be thrown open and de- | keeping. for a state of fearful brooding, 
fenceless against the inroad of a thou-! anxious insecurity. If I resist not the 


sand possibilities. If I am fanatic unfair encroachments of a neighbour, 


enough to give to every one who choos- 
eth to ask of me, I shall soon become 
as helpless and as indigent as any of 
them. If in this age of splendid en- 





* Preached at Glasgow, in September, 1816. 
71 


but rather than go to law make a surs 
render to him of the full, and more 
than the full. of his iniquitous demand, 
I shall soon become a prey to the rapa- 
city and the fraudulence of all who are 
around me. If I make no head against 


562 CHRISTIAN 
the urgency of others plying their own 
selfish exactions on my time and my 
conveniency, I shall soon meet with a 
number of people who will triumph 
over the facility of my compliances, and 
would reduce me to a state of humble 
and truckling subserviency on all the 
wanton variety of their inclinations. 
If I resent not the indignity of a blow, 
I shall throw myself open to every deg- 
radation of insult and of violence. And 
lastly, if I shall accomplish so roman- 
tic and so seemingly impracticable a 
thing as to love my enemies, I invite 
their hostility—I set up in my own 
person a mark for all the attempts of 
malignity and injustice—I bid the 
worst and the basest of men trample 
with impunity upon me. Nor do I 
conceive how, were I to pitch my aim 
from this moment at a morality so re- 
mote from all that the eye-witnesses of 
human life and human performance, I 
could be upheld for a single month in 
any of the comforts or any of the secur- 
ities of my earthly existence. 

In this way do you not perceive how 
the mind of him who summons up all 
these anticipations. and dwells upon 
them with such feelings of disquietude 
and alarm, may in fact be thrown into 
an open and determined revolt against 
the authority of these requirements al- 
together? Do you not conceive how 
his anger and his urgent sense of inter- 
est, and his impatience under the provo- 
cation of injustice, and his dread lest 
the forbearance laid upon him in this 
passage should invite the repetition of 
it—do you not conceive how all this 
might raise up the feelings and resent- 
ments and purposes of the inner man 


MEEKNESS. [SERM. 
which offered to draw them aside from 
the onward line of truth and of recti- 
tude. But with all this stirring sense 
of honour which they carry in their 
bosoms, are there none who carry the 
stirrings of a proud and vindictive jeal- 
ousy along with it? We allow that in 
the heart of many an acquaintance 
there is a high-minded principle, in vir- 
tue of which he moves through society 
without the taint upon his character of 
any one suspicious imputation. But 
surely, if it be through the working of 
the same high-minded principle that he 
disdains an affront, and has no suffer- 
ance for an injury, and gives impetuous 
way to all the movements of a quick 
and restive indignation, do you not 
see how possible it is that a quality or 
a temper of the soul may both bear the 
name and receive the homage of’a vir- 
tue in the exercise of which God is de- 
throned from the sovereignty which be- 
longs to Him; and have we not here 
an example of that thing which is 
highly esteemed among men being in 
(rod’s sight an abomination ? 

But the heart of man must find some 
other plea to satisfy it than its own 
wilfulness, and amid all his resentfu! 
feelings and all his selfish alarms he is 
ever seeking to put on the semblance 
of principle—and in the very case tha 
we are now putting does he affect an 
apprehension for the interests of virtue 
—and he will link his own cause with 
the cause of society at large—and he 
will tell us that the unreserved habit of 
giving which the Gospel recommends 
would unhinge the whole system and 
order of the community; that were 
Christians to bring these various pre- 


to an actual warfare against the Law- | cepts to a literal and unreserved fulfil- 
giver of the New Testament? Oh! | ment, all industry would be suspended, 
my brethren. are there none here pres- | and all justice be trampled under foot, 
ent whe with the lustre of many grace- | and an unprincipled violence would walk 
ful accomplishments upon them, utterly | at large over the face of the country; 
refuse all homage to the pacific and the | and that under this extravagant doc- 
yielding virtues which are here recom- | trine of non-resistance all the mounds 
mended? We do not question their | of public and personal security would 
integrity—we grant it of them that|be swept away, and that the painful 





they have passed through the manifold 
transactions of business without the 
flaw of a single impeachment upon 
their reputation—we know how proud- 
ly they would disdain the temptation 


spectacle would ever be offering itself 
of sordid and unrelenting men carrying 
it with a triumphant impunity over the 
weak but conscientious disciples of a 
religion which taught. them to bend sub- 


e 


XXIV. ] CHRISTIAN 


missively to every imposition, and to 
yield an unquestioning compliance with 


every requirement. 


' 


In this way you can conceive how 
selfishness may borrow to herself some- 
thing like the colour of virtue—and in 
her active resistance to the virtues of the 
text, she may have something at least 
like the semblance of public considera- 
tion to rest upon, and to save the appear- 
ance of consistency with this-express 
passage. of revelation, she will turn that 
branch of Christian morality of which 
it treats into a question of degrees—and 
sitting in judgement on this question, she 
will ask in how far we are to understand 
that a literal obedience should be yielded, 
or at what precise point in the scale of 
hardship and privation it is right for a 
disciple of the New Testament to make 
his stand? And is there no hazard, 
think you. in these circumstances, that 
a man will carry his patience and his 
meekness and his long-suffering just as 
far, and no farther, than suits the wil- 
fulness of his own inclination, and that 
full license will be given to the spon- 
taneous movements of anger and jeal- 
ousy—and that by the weight of this 


combined sophistry, into which the will 


and the reason have thrown their respec- 
tive elements, the bidden duties of the 


text will be completely overborne—and 


that thus, after all, the counsel of the 
man’s own heart and the sight of his 
own eyes, will carry it over the will of 
God, so as that the authority of these 
His precepts shall be set aside alto- 
gether, and we His subjects occupied 
with the exceptions that we have mus- 
tered up against the rule which He has 
delivered to us, shall lose sight of the 
rule itself as the matter of our most 
strenuous and diligent and pointed ob- 
servations. : 

Now, I count it a hich point of Chris- 
tian discipleship that when we sit down 
to the book of God’s revelation, we 
should do it with the sense upon our 
hearts that we are in a State of entire 
pupilage—that every commandment 
which issues from this book should carry 
the influence of its own direct and ob- 
vious authority along with it—that for 
us to summon up In opposition to these 


commandments either the alarms of 


selfishness, or any general speculations 


MEEKNESS. 563 


and political interest, is to eye this book 
with the authority of judges, rather than 
to drink in its lessons with the spirit and 
the acquiescence of little children—that 
at this rate, every obligation of the New 
Testament morality may be paralyzed, 
and every requirement be dethroned 
from the sovereignty which belongs to 
it, and we, instead of acting our bidden 
part in that great system which it is for 
God alone to survey in all the variety 
of its bearings, and to adjust throughout 
all the intricacy of its movements, may 
be offering to thwart the divine will by 
some paltry interest of our own, or by 
some no less paltry but presumptuous 
theory to embarrass these beneficent 
plans of administration which the divine 
wisdom has conceived, and which the 
divine power will carry into sure effect 
by the instrumentality, not of man’s 
skilful corrections, but of man’s humble 
and unresisting obedience. 
The wisdom of man may throw a 
'mistiness around the declarations of the 
will and the counsel of God; but surely 
if all the attempts of human wisdom to 
restrain or to qualify be warded away 
from the passage now before us, there 
cannot be devised a statement of mean- 
ing more perspicuous or more fitted to 
find a direct and lucid conveyance, into 
the plainest understanding. Just con- 
ceive a man resolved to bind himself 
hand and foot to the authority of God, 
and that he shall neither flinch from 
any one bidding, however it may cross 
and gall his inclination, nor suffer him- 
self to be bewildered away by any so- 
phistry whatever from the obvious sig- 


of ours about the machinery of public 
| 
| 


nification of the verses which have now 
been submitted to you—and is it possi- 
ble for him to miss the sense of precepts 
so clearly and prosaically laid down. as 
—Resist not evil, and Give to him that 
asketh thee, and Love thine enemies, 
and Do good to them that hate you, 
and Pray for them that despitefully use 
you and persecute you? 

The principle of being resolved at_all 
hazards to follow the will of God, is the 
main and the essential element of sanc- 
tification. A man possessed of this 
principle will fearlessly embark himself 
on the line of entire and universal obe- 


dience. He will look upon this as his 


564 CHRISTIAN 
alone business, and will prosecute no 
by-end whatever that can at all distract 
him from this only path to a blissful 
eternity. I know that at the outset of 
this path his brooding fancy may ag- 
gravate the many hardships he will 
have to encounter—ay, and if he has 
not wound up his resolves to that great 
and initiatory principle in the life of a 
Christian, of forsaking all, and being 
willing to surrender all at the require- 
ments of the one Master he has chosen, 
he will either shrmk from Christianity 
altogether, or take up with a diluted 
and a compromised Christianity, in the 
service of which he will never earn the 
reward of him who cleaves with full 
purpose of heart unto his God. Be as- 
sured, my brethren, that there is a cor- 
roding worm throughout the whole 
system of your religious concerns, if 
there be not a singleness of aim anda 
singleness of desire, and an unbroken 
principle on your part implicitly to fol- 
low wherever the word of God shall 
lead the way; and if you offer to ex- 
cept or to modify any obvious precept 
of His, whether it be on the impulse of 
an alarmed selfishness, or on some pre- 
sumptuous speculation of your own 
about the general interest of a world 
which it is for Him alone to manage 
and superintend—you just make a re- 
bellious deviation from the course that 
He has prescribed to you, and you in- 
sert such a flaw into your own personal 
Christianity as violates the simplicity, 
and must eventually mar the success 
of the whole enterprise. 

But if the alarm be extravagant. and 
beyond the truth of the case, would it 
not be well to reduce and to quiet it? 
Surely, ‘in the work of counting the 
cost of the tower before you sit down to 
build it, if it be wrong to make a flat- 
tering estimate, it is also wrong to 
make an exaggerated one of the whole 
expense and difficulty of the undertak- 


ing. It is true that whatever the ex-' 
pense be, you should have an_hon-| 
est and entire readiness both to do| 
and to suffer all things which you'! 


think, upon your clear understanding 


of the will of God, ought to be done | 


and ought to be suffered. But fancy, 
as I said before, may magnify the 
suffering ; and is it not right to reduce 


MEEKNESS. [SERM. 
' the exaggerations of fancy—when she 
conjures up ideal pictures, and makes 
them float before the eye of the mind 
in such a way as to terrify and disturb 
it? Fancy is ever looking on to the 
possibilities of future life—and as she 
employs herself in framing cases where 
disgrace and poverty would be the sure 
effect of a literal adherence to the com- 
mandments of God, she may cause the 
man on whom she works to falter from 
his purpose of observing them. In 
other words, she may beset the com- 
mencement of his path as a Christian 
with such temptations as he has not 
strength for ; and is it not right to allay 
the force of these temptations? To 
enter this path with any drawback 
whatever on the purpose of doing sim- 
ply and entirely what God bids you, is 
to enter upon it with such a double, 
such an ambiguous, such a broken and 
divided sentiment within you, ag to 
make a wrong outset, and as will never 
land you in a prosperous termination. 
If thine eye be single, thy whole body 
shall be full of light. . 
But this sad work of mustering up 
exceptions, and brooding over the fan- 
cied impossibilities of the bidden obe- 
dience, and grafting our own moderate 
and practicable system on the unbend- 
ing requisitions of the great Lawgiver, 
and garbling the record of His counsel, 
and modifying the plain and undeniable 
sense of His communications, and com- 
pounding matters between His express 
authority and our clinging attachment 
to the ease and interest of the world—I 
say this work of secret hypocrisy, which 
carries in it a flinching of purpose from 
the will of God, under the prospect of 
some future and imagined possibility, 
is Just as hostile to our state as Chris- 
tians. as if the possibility were turned 
into a fact, and there were on our part 
a flinching of performance from the 
will of God. In the one case you have 
a palpable deficiency of obedience in the — 
outer man—in the other case, a con- 
cealed reservation of purpose in the in- 
ner man, bespeaking such a radical un- 
fairness of heart as is sure to bewilder 
all our perceptions of divine truth, to 
' give an unhingement to all our princi 
| ples, to darken our views as well as. to 
| Vitiate and enfeeble our practice, to de 








XXIV. | 


pose conscience from its supremacy, to 
unsettle our faith in that testimony 
which we are doing the uttermost to re- 
sist and to mutilate—and, in one word, 
by provoking the Spirit of God to put ali 
His counsels and: all His illuminations 
away from us. 

This propensity of the mind to run 
on to the conceivable cases of future his- 
tory, and to dwell on the circumstances 
in which an entire and literal obedience 
would be so painful and so inconven- 
ient, and so hard in its consequences, 
acts certainly as a temptation, disposing 
us to set aside the authority of the com- 
mandment. Now, it is observable, that 
our Saviour, even at the very outset of 
His addresses to those whom He called 
upon, said something to alleviate the 
force of this temptation. He occasion- 
ally said what had the effect of mitigat- 
ing their apprehensions of all they had 
to lose and of all they had to suffer in 
the business of following after Him. 
He did not call His disciples to take 
His yoke upon them without telling 
them at the same time that his yoke 
was easy and His burden was light. 
He did not tell them to seek first the 
kingdom of God and its righteousness, 
without telling at the same time that 
all other things should be added unto 
them. He did not tell them that no 
man could be His discipie who did not 
forsake all, without also telling them 
that every man who forsook all should 
receive an hundred-fold, even in this 
life, for what he had relinquished. Chris- 
tians must be in readiness to give up 
all for eternity ; but it is to be remarked 
that the apostles did not tell this to their 
disciples, without also telling them that, 
in point of fact, they should meet with 
an abundance of temporal enjoyments 
scattered along the road that leads to 
eternity. Paul tells his Christian friends 
by his example that they should count 
not their life dear unto them—but he 
also tells them that godliness has the 
promise of the life that now is, as well 
as of that which is to come; and while 
all of them are made to know that the 
commandments of God le most indis- 
pensably upon them, they are also made 
to know that these commandments are 
not grievous 

In pursuance of this method, let me 


CHRISTIAN MEEKNESS. 


565 


not attempt any deduction from the au- 
thority of any obvious commandment ; 
let me not paralyze unto the death any 
one of the precepts before us, all of 
which have a living power of obliga- 
tion ; let me not dilute into utter insig- 
nificancy al] that is here said about the 
duties of liberality and forbearance and 
resistance, and the love we should bear 
to the injurious and to enemies; but 
let me conceive an honest disciple to 
act upon the sense and the unadulter- 
ated impression of this passage, and 
vathering our anticipations of his future 
history from the Bible of God and the 
observations of man, we are convinced 
that in the actual exercise of the virtues 
here recommended, he will find how 
much the terrors of an alarmed imagin- 
ation outstrip the realities of living ex- 
perience. 

You will therefore indulge me in this 
way of it. Instead of entering directly 
into the business of explaining, or of 
enforcing these precepts, I meet at the 
very outset of my attention to them with 
a kind of repulsive suspicion stirring in 
my own heart, and distinctly observable 
in the fears and countenance of others, 
about the extent of their obligation, and 
the practicability of their following. I 
make it my first and my foremost ob- 
ject to beat down this suspicion, to 
grapple with the difficulty which flashes 
upon me at the very first footstep of 
my being introduced into this field of 
contemplation, and, if possible, to get it 
disposed of—to do what I have already 
told you was done by Christ and His 
apostles—to alleviate the force of the 
temptation which meets you. not at the 
time when you are doing the require- 
ments of this passage, not at the time 
when you are rendering to them the 
obedience of your actual performances, 
but at the time when you should be 
rendering to them the obedience of your 
honest and unreserved purposes—to 
clear awav the obstacle which lies on 
the road to that sinwleness of aim and 
that full determination of Jovalty to the 
God of heaven. without which the inner 
man is virtually and substantially in an 
attitude of rebellion. ‘This IL conceive 
to be a right and a useful preparation 
for the subsequent train of my argu- 
ment, and I trust you will find that 


566 CHRISTIAN 
when labouring, even on this prepara- 
tory ground, a something might be met 
with to throw light on the passage, and 
help to enforce and to illustrate the 
duties which are here laid down to us. 
In pursuance of this, let me take up 
one of the exactions which are before 
us, even the one by which we are re- 
quired when smitten on the one cheek 
to turn the other also. The barrier 
which I am attempting to remove, and 
which lies in the way of an entire pur- 
pose to give to this precept an entire 
obedience, is the fearful suspicion, that 
if I resent not the indignity of the blow 
I shall throw myself open to every de- 
gradation of insult and of violence. Now, 
if I can remove this barrier, I shall clear 
away from the commencement of the 
path of practical obedience a tempta- 
tion which, if yielded to, will vitiate 
that commencement. I shall remove a 
temptation in virtue of which a man’s 
initiatory attitude may become a wrong 
one. I shall remove a temptation which, 
by poisoning and diluting the purposes 
of the mind, will infallibly impair even 
the visible aspect of the man’s obedi- 
ence. and take away from the entireness 
of his outward performances. I am not 
at present standing on the high ground, 
that even though every species of degra- 
dation and violence should be the result 
of an unexcepted adherence to the will 
of God, they form but a small surrender 
when put by the side of a reversion so 
splendid as an eternity of secure and 
peaceful enjoyment. I am not. admit- 
ting the justness of this fearful antici- 
pation and then closing with you on the 
principle, that though it were realized, 
that would merely be laying upon you 
the light affliction which is but for a 
moment, and is as nothing to the ex- 
ceeding and eternal weight of glory. 
This is firm and solid ground at all 
times to stand upon ; but in the present 
instance it 1s not necessary to repair to 
it. Instead of meeting the fearful an- 
ticipation in this way, [ altogether re- 
fuse the justness of it. I deny the fact 
that degradation and violence will ensue 
to any “hristian from his passive recep- 
tion of a blow. submitted to under the 
force of a religious principle, and borne 
with an uncomplaining meekness of 


MEEKNESS. [SERM _ 
t 

elevated sense of duty which spreads an 
aspect of sacredness over the whole of 
his observable history. If you are kept 
from the full purpose of submitting 
yourself to the precept in question by 
an apprehension of the indignities which 
the fulfilment ‘of it might heap upon 
you, then I might say that, however 
well founded the apprehension should 
be, it is not enough to dissipate the 
obligation of a mandate issued from the 
legislature of heaven in terms of such 
round and unqualified deliverance as are 
employed in the text. 

This is what I might say; but I am 
enabled to say more—that the tempta- 
tion is a mere fictitious image conjured 
up by the fancy of man, ever breeding 
some extravagance or other to agitate 
and disturb him. Or go to the essential 
fountain of the matter—that is, to the 
fabrication of him in whom the power 
of misleading and deluding the children 
of Adam is vested for a season, even 
the father of lies, whose delight it is to 
lay some specious imposition or other 
before the eye of the mind, for the pur- 
pose of breaking in upon the universal- 
ity of its purposes, and painfully disturb- 
jag its aspirations, in its initiatory en- 
deavours after a pure and holy and com- 
plete and withal an unexcepted obedi- 
ence. Now, my brethren, do you come 
forward and ask me what it is that en- 
titles me to meet the apprehension in 
question by such a direct and immediate 
denial? I again repeat my contradic- 
tion to it, and I avow that I have at 
this moment as many arguments upon 
which to rest the evidence of this con- 
tradiction as there are human hearts and 
human countenances before me. J am 
supposing an humble and devoted fol- 
lower of the Lord Jesus, with all the 
due meekness of the Christian temper, 
and all the lofty determination of Chris- 
tian principle, passively to take the blow 
that has been inflicted on him; and the 
question I have to put is—where shall 
we find a man who, under such impres- 
sive circumstances as these, will be 
monster enough to repeat that blow? 
Sure I am, that throughout the whole 
extent of the random and indiscriminate 
multitude before me, there is not a single 
individual can be fixed upon who could 


temper, and at the same time with that | thus brutally wanton it over the meek 


XXIV. ] CHRISTIAN 
and unresisting attitude of the saint 
who stood before him. Oh, no! my 
brethren, there is not one of you who, 
under the power of that moral recoil 
which would come upon your heart, and 
bear down all the vindictive purposes 
that stirred in it—there is not one of you 
who would not feel as irresistibly held 
back from the act of repetition as if the 
lifted arm were arrested in its midway 
course by a stroke of palsy, or the God 
of heaven, interposing at the critical 
moment in behalf of His faithful ser- 
vant, had by a single miracle willed all 
its energies away from it. Could a 
single man be fixed upon who under- 
stood not what this recoil was, and had 
the atrocity of character to inflict the 
second blow on the cheek that was 
turned to receive it, the cry of execration 
from all his fellows would come upon 
him in one tide of overwhelming chas- 
tisement, and turning him into a victim 
of public wrath, would hunt him away 
beyond the outskirts of society. Now, 
what is this to say but that the suspicion 
in question is a bugbear? It has done 
a world of mischief by seducing many 
an inquirer from the singleness of a 
resolved loyalty to the God of heaven, 
and after all it gives evidence to the 
author from whom it comes by turning 
out to be a falsehood. It is hard, in- 
deed, that that apprehension should cor- 
rupt the initiatory attitude of the soul, 
and should make it hesitate about the 
extent of that obedience that it is to 
render to the authority of Christ, and 
should detract from the entireness of its 
resolution to follow Him fully, and to 
cleave to Him with full purpose of 
heart; and it crowns the hardship of 
the whole circumstance when the thing 
apprehended is, after all, nothing better 
than a phantom flitting before the eye 
of a misled imagination. The thing 
apprehended, my brethren, will not hap- 
pen. God has provided against it in 
the moral constitution of the species. 
He who wields an omnipotent sway 
over the movements of the spirit as well 
as over all the elements of the material 
creation, can turn the heart of every 
man whithersoever He will. and bind 
its every impulse towards the accom- 
plishment of His promises in behalf of 
the meek and the righteous and the god- 


MEEKNESS. 567 
ly. Out of the materials of human 
character as it exists in society—deeply 
tainted and vitiated as it is by that sad 
hereditary disease which our first pa- 
rents have entailed upon us—even out 
of these materials can God create a 
shield of protection for His servants 
which shall compass them about, and 
spread over them such a mantle of se- 
curity as will leave them safe to go 
throughout all the departments of busi- 
ness and of intercourse, aud to carry 
a most literal, a most scrupulous, a 
most exact obedience to all His re- 
quirements along with them. Your 
own experience demonstrates the truth 
of this in as far as the particular re- 
quirement I am now insisting on is 
concerned. The man who fearlessly 
commits himself to the performance of 
this requirement, up to the last jot and 
tittle of it, foolishly scrupulous as he 
may be thought, and fanatic as he may 
be called, will compel the homage of all 
his acquaintances, and no hand will ever 
rise in violence against him, and he will 
move his protected way throughout all 
the heats of human assailment; and 
instead of that indignity with which the 
false tempter tried to scare him away 
from the doing of the commandments, 
he will find that the faithful God has 
overshadowed him with a canopy of 
defence, and placed the homage of ten- 
derness, and the salutations of respect, 
and the soothing civilities of friendship 
and cordial admiration on every side of 
him. 

Speaking on the mere probabilities 
of human experience, I assert it of this 
man that he stands greatly less exposed 
to the outbreaks of rudeness or of vio- 
lence than he who has cast off the spirit 
and the authority of this passage alto- 
gether, and who is jealous of his hon- 
our, and proudly disdainful of every 
encroachment upon his rights, and 
stands on the ready tiptoe of vindica- 
tion for every one affront, real or imag- 
inary. The passive, unresisting Chris- 
tian may, according to the alarms of 
nature, be looked upon as exposed to 
every blast of human violence—but let 
him endure to the end, and let faith 
banish these alarms, and let him keep 
an unsullied and unmutilated integrity 
of obedience, and let him embark on 


568 


the field of duty with the single princi- 
ple of acting up to all the requirements, 
and he will find how the field brightens 
and beautifies before him by every foot- 
step of his advancement. He will find 
that in the keeping of the command- 
ments there is great reward. He will 
find the groundlessness of those many 
apprehensions by which the great ene- 
my of mankind tried to deter him from 
the service of heaven’s Master, and an 
obedience to heaven’s Lord. And for 
the future exposure to malignity and 
rudeness by which he tried to scare him 
away from the path that leads to eter- 
nity. he will find that even in time the 
kindliness of every eye will be drawn 


THE SILVER SHRINES, 


[SERM. 


code which the Author and Finisher of 
our faith has bequeathed to us; and 
when [ think of duties being ours and 
events being God’s—when [ think of 
His absolute control over the events of 
human society, and how He can turn 
the heart of man whithersoever He will 
—when I think of the way m which 
He has shielded the human species 
from the violence of the inferior crea- 
tion, even by putting the fear of man 
and the dread of man upon all animals 


!—when I think of the way in which 


He has shielded the passive recipients 
of a blow from the violence of their own 
species. by all those checks of delicacy 
and feeling which he hath laid on the 


towards him, and all hostility and vio- | whole mass of human society—when [I 
lence, as if arrested by the omnipotence | further think of the harmony between 
of a charm, will be cleared away from | | this portion of human experience and 
his footsteps. | the promises of the Bible, and I take a 


Before I conclude, I cannot but point 
your attention to the beautiful harmony 
that subsists between all this experience 
and the promises of Scripture. The 
meek, one would think. are ready to be 
overborne by surrounding violence, and 
yet God says the meek shall inherit the 
earth. The man who fears God, and 
reads this passage of His communica- 
tion, will love his enemies; and God 
says—I will make the enemies of him 
who fears me to be at peace with him. 
Oh! pause, pause, my brethren. ere you 
suffer any apprehension whatever to mu- 
tilate the entireness of that prescriptive 


survey of the extent of these promises, 

{ must protest against admitting the 
fear of any consequences whatever from 
trenching on the entireness of our pur- 
pose to yield an undeviating adherence 
to the precepts of the Bible; but know- 
ing that all these consequences are In 
Hlis hand and under His absolute direc- 

tion, let us prove how fearlessly we con- 

fide in the providence and faithfulness 
of God by the evidences of a. close. an 
assiduous, and an unexcepted observa- 
tion carried round the whole compass 
and extent of the revealed law of God. 


SERMON 


The Silver 


XX V. 


Shrines.* 


“For a certain man, named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, 


brought no small gain unto the craftsmen ; 


whom he called together with the workmen of like 


occupation, and said, Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth,’—Acts xix. 24, 25. 


Tern are two ways in which a cer-| terest and a reputation among men— 
tain air of secularity and of week-day | who banishes away from it all that is 


earthliness might be imparted to a pul- 
pit demonstration It might be done | 
by a preacher who pitches no higher 
than a worldly system of morals—who 
founds it on the inferior pr ugapne® of in- 








* Preached at Glasgow in February, 1817, 


heavenly and all that is peculiar in the 
spirit of the gospel—and who, while he 
pursues the details of civil, and social, 
and domestic economy, seems animated 
“| by nothing else than that bare conside- 
ration of propriety which it is competent 
for any man to entertain, though he 


XXv. ]) 


neither Jook upward to God nor onward 
to the judgment that is in reserve for 
him. Let it never be forgotten, that 
even in that heart where the spirituali- 
ties of faith have no occupation—that 
even in the bosom of him who never 
heeds his God. or casts one earnest re- 
gard towards the book of that message 
which reports to us His doctrine and His 
will, there may be a strong sense of 
moral rectitude, and a strong suscepti- 
bility to many of the finest touches of 
moral delicacy. and a ready movement 
of consent and of obedience to the im- 
pulses of honour and compassion and 
generosity, and all that is laudable or 
engaging in such a character may be 
either exemplified in the life, or urged, 
and urged most eloquently from the pul- 
pit; and yet, neither in the one nor in 
the other may there be a single thought 
beyond the world, or a single virtue 
which shall not find in the world all its 
acknowledgment and all its reward. 
But again, there may to the eye and 
the apprehension of some be the very 
same air of secularity in the lucubra- 
tions of him who wants to preach the 
whole system of human life with the 
entire spirit of the New Testament—of 
him who is for carrying forward its 
strictest and its loftiest requisitions into 
all the manifold varieties of human ex- 
perience—of him who would like to ex- 
alt the character of the species from their 
affection for the things which are below 
to a supreme and predominant affection 
for the things which are above—of him 
who would not be for letting down by a 
single step the spiritual character of Chris- 
tianity, but would like to fix and to realize 
it on all the concerns of life and on all the 
actual business of society. For. you will 
observe, that the lessons of theology may 
be dealt out to an audience in the terms 
of an abstract and lofty representation, 
and its well-built system of articles may 
be made to carry along with it the con- 
sent of every understanding, and its 
paramount authority over all the wishes 
of nature and of interest may be strenu- 
ously asserted on the one side, and be 
as unresistingly acquiesced in on the 
other, and all this without one stretch 
of application to the familiarities of the 
living and the acting man. And when 
this work of application is attempted— 
72 


THE SILVER SHRINES. 


569 


when the effort is made by the preacher 
to transplant this style of Christianity 
from speculation into practice—when, 
for this purpose, he follows your every- 
day path, and steps over the threshold 
of your family, and takes account of 
your doings in the market-place, and 
thrusts himself into the very heart of 
the secularities which engage you, and 
haunts the very footsteps you take from 
one transaction to another. and from one 
company to another, and keeps a wake- 
ful eye on all the details of your ever- 
moving history, and, in a word, holds 
the faithful mirror to all that meets you, 
and takes you up from Sabbath to Sab- 
bath, why, it may be felt by some that 
in the fact of domg so the teacher of 
Christianity is inflicting upon it an offen- 
sive desecration—that he is spreading a 
hue of earthliness over it—that he is de- 
basing his subject by the vulgarities of 
tame and ordinary experience—that he 
is letting in upon a hallowed field such 
a plain familiarity of coloring as goes to 
mar and to violate the sanctity of its 
complexion, and making an invasion on 
the dignity of that pulpit which should 
be consecrated to the promulgation of 
religious truth in its most abstract, gene- 
ral, and elevated form.’ 

Now, before I proceed to any further 
explanations, I must offer my protest 
against the whole drift and tendency of 
such an argument as the one I am now 
adverting to. I assert, with the most 
unqualified earnestness, that Christian- 
ity is the religion of life, and will bear 
to be carried in the whole extent of her 
spirit and of her laws throughout all the 
haunts and varieties of human inter- 
course—that her high pretension is to 
subordinate the every doing and the 
every interest of man to the regimen of 
her own unbending authority-——that in 
her strictest and most essential charac- 
ter she may be introduced into the busi- 
est walks of society, and there uphold 
her disciples in the exercise of that sim- 
plicity and godly sincerity which she 
lays upon them; and in opposition to 
all the alleged impracticabilities which 
are conceived to lie in’ the way of her 
full establishment over the acts and the 
consciences of our species, do I aver, that 
if she cannot be practical neither ought 
she to be preached—that if there be some 


570 


invincible necessity why she should be 
banished from any one of your employ- 
ments through the week, then she ought 
to be banished from every one of our 
pulpits upon the Sabbath—that she is 
either everything or nothing—that she 
knows of no compromise between her 
own. laws and the maxims of the world 
by some expedient of time-accommodat- 
ing conformity—that she disclaims all 
these midway adjustments entirely— 
and if she is deposed from her right of 
paramount control over all the conceiva- 
ble cases of human conduct, then let her 
also be deposed from the ostensible place 
she now holds in the eye of the country 
—let her very name be given up to pub- 
lic scorn—let her forthwith be aban- 
doned to the utter contempt and negli- 
gence of mankind. 

Let me assure you that there is no 
safe alternative between an entire Chris- 
tianity and no Christianity at all—that 
the religion of the New Testament ad- 
mits of no partitionmg whatever—that 
what it professes to do is either thor- 
oughly to reform the world, or to bring 
the world under the burden of a right- 
eous and unescapable condemnation— 
and that whoever the individual be who 
refuses to give up his conformities, and 
to drink in the pure and unqualified 
spirit of the gospel, and fearlessly to re- 
nounce all for eternity, and to give his 
honest and aspiring energies to the love 
of God and a patient waiting for Christ, 
let him plead obstacles and impossibili- 
ties as he may. he has chosen to abide 
with a world which the Bible represents 
to be lying in wickedness—he keeps 
him by the broad way which leadeth to 
destruction—he turns a deaf ear from 
the call to glory and to virtue—he winds 
not up his resolves to the pitch of a fair 
and honest consent to Christianity—he 
is not willing to forsake all in the act of 
following after Jesus, or to be entirely 
what He would have him to be, or to do 
entirely what He would have him to do. 

I feel urged to these observations by 
the power and the prevalency of a senti- 
ment which I know to exist among you 
—that the realities of actual experience 
offer an insurmountable barrier against 
the lessons of Christianity in all the ful- 
ness and variety of their application—— 
that what may sound very well from the 


THE SILVER SHRINES. 


[SERM. 


pulpit on the Sabbath is altogether in- 
applicable to the familiar and every-day 
practice of the week—that what the 
preacher can dress out to your delighted 
imaginations in the form of a very spe- 
cious and imposing plausibility, must 
just be thrown aside and forgotten when 
you repair to the scenes of ordinary mer- 
chandise, and get involved in the com- 
mon run of its calls and its temptations 
and its cares—that some mysterious ne-. 
cessity exists upon earth for binding. 
down all who live in it to a certain de- 
gree of conformity—that it is utterly 
impossible, under the actual habits and 
arrangements of society, to sustain the 
lofty practice or the lofty tone of a mo- 
rality that is bent on the themes, and 
the contemplations, and the spiritual ex- 
ercises of a celestial world :—in a word, 
that you are living in this world, and 
that, somehow or other, it is a world 
which raises an unconquerable obstruc- 
tion to the purity and the elevation of. 
the New Testament—and in this way 
has religion in the eyes of thousands got 
a visionary character impressed upon it. 
It is dethroned from the authority of a 
real and a living principle of conduct— 
it is reduced to an unsubstantial mock- 
ery, which may recur at intervals like a 
Sabbath charm upon the ear, without 
either entering the heart or vivifying 
the practice—and thus with many, and 
very many, who neither question its 
truth, nor resist its orthodoxy, nor tram- 
ple upon its ordinances. nor vilify nor 
arraign its ministers as the useless ad- 
vocates of an impracticable system, is it - 
treated as a phantom of no power—a 
voice of no import and no significancy. 
Now, how can you get at this very 
deep and general impression so as to 
reason it away, without descending upon 
that very field of experience on which it 
flourisheth ? How can you accomplish 
the dislodgment of it, but by stepping 
abroad on that arena where its founda- 
tions are laid? Howcan you demolish 
this stronghold of resistance without 
taking an account of the pieces which 
compose it, and attending to the way in 
which they are framed together, so as to 
raise that fabric which it is our object to 
destroy? In other words, how can the 
argument we have stated be carried to 
its right conclusion without. going into 


XXv. ] 


details ? without touching upon the force 
of those temptations which are felt ev- 
ery day at your shops and in your count- 
ing-houses? without accompanying you 
into the varied haunts and operations of 
merchandise ? and finally, without bor- 
rowing an aid from the light of such 
demonstrations as will both serve to es- 
tablish a point in political economy. and 
show the applications to life and to busi- 
ness which may be drawn from the mo- 
rality of the New Testament? | 

But this. as I have already intimated, 
may in the eyes of some throw a revolt- | 
ing air of secularity over the whole spec- 
ulation. It may be offensive to the un- 
accustomed ears of those who like to 
hear nothing but the transmuted ortho- 
doxy of former days in its most general 
and unbending form, and are forgetful 
all the while of the minuttly experi- 
mental applications, both to social and 
to domestic life, which characterized the 
teaching of the apostles. I should like 
you to give up this hereditary prejudice, 
and to get the better of a squeamish- 
ness that is so apt and so easy to be of- 
fended, and to remember that it likens 
you to those whom Paul called the 
weaker brethren. and to know that the 
best spirit of the gospel is when with 
the spirit of love there is mingled the 
spirit of power and of a sound mind. 
And therefore it is that I call upon you 
to bring the habit of a well-exercised 
discernment to this question. and to dis- 
tinguish between the drift of an argu- 
ment which goes to secularize what is 
Christian. and an argument which goes 
to Christianize what is secular—be- 
tween an argument which brings down 
all that is heavenly to an earthly and a 
degraded standard. and an argument the 
honest aim of which is to bring up all 
that is earthly to a lofty and a celestial 
standard—to press home the gospel in 
all the extent of its requisitions, and 
thoroughly to infuse the whole system 
and business of human life with that 
very spirit which sustains tranquillity in | 
the hour of death, and draws upon it 
the voice of approbation from the judg- 
ment-seat, and is at length admitted to 
flourish without impediment or alloy in 
the mansions of eternity. 

In the instance before us, the attempt 
of Paul to introduce Christianity into 





THE SILVER SHRINES. 


571 


the town of Ephesus was resisted—and 
that on the ground of its conceived hos- 
tility to the interests of a trade. It 
would have put an end to a particular 
manufacture. All the capital that was 
invested, and all the labour that was 
marntained in the business of making © 
silver shrines for Diana, would have 
been thrown out of their wonted em- 
ployment. This was the anticipated 
ruin which stood full in the eye of De- 
metrius and his brethren of like occu- 
pation—and with all the quick and 
sensitive jealousy of mercantile alarm 
did he stand up for the established idol- 
atry of the town, and try to bear down 
the enterprise of the apostles by the tu- 
mult and the terror of insurrectionary 
violence. 

Now, I cannot conceive how any, 
under the impression of Christianity 
being the true religion, should wish 
well to such a resistance. ven let the 
whole mischief be realized up to the 
full extent of the felt anticipation, ought 
it not to have been willingly borne in 
the course of instituting a pure and au- 
thentic worship on the overthrow of 
Paganism and all its revolting abomi- 
nations? It is a painful spectacle, no 
doubt, for the eye to dwell upon, when 
over the whole field of its contemplation 
it sees nothing but ruined capitalists 
and starving artificers ; but to the mind 
of him who rightly balances the consid- 
eration of good and of evil, of duty and 
interest. of moral principle and temporal 
advantage, it will be the instantaneous 
judgment that the spectacle, melancholy 
as it is. ought to be endured, rather than 
that Christianity should be rejected— 
that everything must be given up for its 
sake—and that it must ever be regarded 
as the richest blessing which can be 
conferred upon a country, even though 
the way to the final establishment of 
this religion should be paved upon the 
ruins of its commercial greatness. 

But the father of lies is ever employed 
in magnifying his temptations, and it 
were not out of place to consider in 
how far he overcharged that picture of 
wretchedness which floated before the 
eye of the Ephesian silversmith. It is 
very true, that from the moment when 
the great goddess Diana came to be uni- 
versally despised, there would be a uni 


572 


versal cessation of the demand for those 
silver shrines, the making of which 
brought no small gain unto the crafts- 
men. But in what way did it bring 
them the gain ?—was it the mere work- 
ing up of the article which brought to 
their door all the elements of comfort 
and subsistence for their families ?— 
was there anything in the particular 
mode or exercise of industry which car- 
ried the power of wealth or of mainte- 
nance along with it ?—would the mere 
employment of itself have fed or have 
clothed them? From what source, I 
ask, did they draw the revenue which 
upheld them ?—was it from the handi- 
work, or from the price paid for the 
handiwork ?—was it from any active 
ability on the part of the manufacturer, 
or from an ability on the part of purcha- 
sers to afford them the price of the man- 
ufactured article? Why, my brethren, 
all that the manufacture could do was 
to produce its own commodity. The 
gain which accrued to the workmen 
was drawn from ancther quarter entire- 
ly. All the bread which it enabled 
them to purchase for their children, and 
all the substantial comfort with which 
it cheered the masters of so many a 
household establishment—and all the 
joyous spectacles which it reared of a 
whole street occupied by thriving and 
industrious families—every one of these 
elements lay comprised in one general 
object which embraced and provided for 
them all—not in the shrines, but in the 
price that was paid for them—not in the 
productive powers of the manufacturer. 
for from this source nothing could be 
made toemanate but shrines, but in the 
ability of those who purchased them— 
not in the handiwork, but in the effec- 
tive demand of a previous and indepen- 
dent ability for the article that was 
wrought. 

Now, mark it well, that though Paul 
had by the achievement of a single day 
christened the whole population of 
Ephesus, he would only have extin- 
guished the taste for shrines, but he 
would not have reduced by a single iota 
the ability to purchase them. He would 
have put an end to the manufacture, we 
grant you, but there was nothing in his 
Christianity that could at all touch or 
impair the fund out of which flowed 


THE SILVER SHRINES. 


[sere 


the gain and the maintenance of the 


er Petts es eS a a 


people who were employed in it. The 
convert ceased his demand for shrines. 
but he did not on that account lose that 
portion of his revenue which went to 
defray the cost of them. This was still 
in reserve, and would in point of fact 
be discharged on other articles of ex- 
penditure. The ability of consumers 
to furnish a profit to the capitalist and 
a subsistence to the artificer. was just 
in every way the same after this revolu- 
tion in the faith of the people as before 
it. One of the old channels through 
which it found its way to the encourage- 
ment of industry was doubtless aban- 
doned. but as soon as some substitute 
for shrines had been devised for taking 
off the unexpended increase, another 
channel would open, and we should be- 
hold as copious a distribution of all the 
elements of comfort as before, through- 
out as wide an extent of a working and 
a trading population. | 

That there would be all that tempo- 
rary inconvenience and distress which 
arises from every sudden and unlooked- 
for shift in the state of the demand is 
undeniable. But it looked far more 
formidable in the eyes of Demetrius. 
Like many of the economists who have 
succeeded him, he saw in that measure, 
which would have done no more than 
change the direction of industry, a total 
and an irrecoverable extinction of it. 
What he honestly dreaded was a perma- 
nent blow to the trade of Ephesus— 
that she would, somehow, be shorn in 
part of her wealth and of her greatness 
—that a certain portion of manufacture, 
with all the benefit and subsistence it 
brought to families, would disappear 
from her. Nor did he see how soon her 
commerce would reascend to all its wont- 
ed prosperity—how it possessed an un- 
quelled principle of vigour which made 
it to survive the shock of any sudden 
fluctuation—and that should every altar 
of Paganism be overthown, and the 
gospel in all its pure and holy influences 
reign with unrivaled ascendency over 
the hearts of a Christian people, there 
would, after a moral revolution so big 
to him with the imagination of mani- ” 
fold disasters, be as plenteous a circula- 
tion of gain among the craftsmen, as 
busy and animated a throng in the 


xxv. ] 


market-place of his city, and a tide of 
exuberancy as full and a3 generous as 
ever, pouring forth from the various 
sources of nature and of Providence. 
throughout all her families. 

And here do I make my confident 
appeal to the very oldest of our citizens 
—to those of them who have taken the 
profoundest interest in the history of 
commerce, and have kept the most 
wakeful eye upon all its alternations—I 
bid them repeat, upon their own ex- 
perience, how often in the course of 
their lives an oppressive weight of de- 
spondency has been seen to come upon 
our people, and some great political 
movement, or some interception in the 
paths of our foreign intercourse, has de- 
ranged the existing operations—and as 
they looked at the mischief which low- 
ered so portentously upon them, what. 
I would ask, was the degree of fearful 
anticipation which it inspired? Was 
it only the distress of a few months of 

‘which they were afraid? or was it the 
visitation of some fixed and irrecover- 
able disaster? Did not the city feel 
herself menaced by an evil of far more 
terrible import than such a temporary 
embarrassment as every change in the 
direction of trade must necessarily cre- 
ate? Was it not a permanent decline 
of trade, or a partial extinction of it. 
which appalled her; and how often, I 
ask, has this periodic alarm arisen and 
spread its anxious and disheartening 
gloom over the spirits of a brooding 
population ? 

And, I ask again, how often has this 
apprehension turned out to be a chime- 
ra? How often has prosperity’s bright- 
ening day emerged, and with more 
vivid lustre than before, out of this little 
period of dark and troubled imagina- 
tions? How often has the city of our 
habitation broken her powerful and un- 
faltering way out of all the adversities 
which threatened to overwhelm her ?— 
and tell me, ye sage and observant 
characters of half a century, as ye re- 
count her seasons of dimness and dis- 
tress, if e’er ye remember such a time 

.when the boding cloud of mischief did 
not clear away, and the eye of a wake- 
ful Providence did not again look out 

to shed its blessings and its smiles over 


% 


THE SILVER SHRINES. 





573 


as thriving and as populous a commun- 
ity as ever? 

Such is the fact; and a very few 
repetitions of that one step in argument 
by which I attempted to meet the 
prophecy of Demetrius would complete 
the explanation. But this I forbear to 
prosecute. and think that I have gone 
far enough, in the place which I now 
occupy, when I have barely suggested 
it; and I shall only say, ere I proceed 
to the textual application of all this 
reasoning, that in every country where 
property is surrounded with the securi- 
ties of justice, the processes of trade 
can no more be permanently arrested 
than the processes of vegetation—that 
the stamina of its continuance and ex- 
tension are in every way as indestructi- 
ble as even the elements of nature—and 
that as surely as the seasons revolve, 
and the fruits of the earth ripen in their 
wonted exuberancy for the subsistence 
of man, so surely will commerce be 
upheld at an average standard of great- 
ness under all her fluctuations—and let 
her languish in her threatening periods 
of transition as she may, she will ever 
be found to weather and survive the 
shock of all moral and all historical 
changes. 

There is one respect in which we 
differ from the people of Ephesus. The 
question is not now between the inter- 
ests of trade and the admittance of 
the Christian profession into our coun- 
try ; but there may at times be a ques- 
tion still between the interests of trade 
and the adoption of a Christian measure 
in our country—and the very argument 
of Demetrius, the silversmith, may be 
set up in factious opposition against the 
advocates of a righteous cause—and the 
advancement of a moral or of a religious 
good may thus be retarded on some 
plea of mercantile policy—and the best 
and purest devices of philanthropists 
may be withstood and frustrated, be- 
cause they involve in them the over- 
throw of some existing craft which 
brings no small wealth unto the capital- 
ists, and no small gain unto the crafts- 
men—and, as if the interest that was 
thus supported would not be replaced 
by another interest of equal extent, 


which would grow and form from the 


574 


first moment of the measure being ac- 
complished—would the measure be re- 
sisted with as much vehemence as if it 
involved the country in all the fatality 
of mischief, and the temporary evil 
arising from a mere ‘change in_ the 
direction of trade would, if looked at 
through the mist of futurity, be mag- 
nified into the awful disaster of a per- 
manent and ruinous invasion upon the 
trade itself—and thus might the defence 
of iniquities the most glaring and out- 
rageous, be conducted in the very lan- 
guage and be falsely associated with 
the dearest objects of patriotism. 

Let me relieve the generality of this 
argument by one illustration. Many of 
you remember the time when the natu- 
ral enthusiasm of our country was kept 
at bay by the very argument of Deme- 
trius—when the interest of trade was 
set up in resistance to all that justice 
could assert, or to all that compas- 
sion could plead, in behalf of outraged 
Africa—when it was said that the deso- 
lation of its families was essential to the 
maintenance of the families of Britain— 
when Parliament was overborne by pa- 
thetic representations from individuals 
who plead that their all would be dissi- 
pated, and from towns which maintain- 
ed-—and I believe honestly maintained — 
that their commerce would go into utter 
annihilation. It would have been our 
duty to have done what was righteous. 
even though all these anticipations had 
been realized. But look at the fact, and 
see what became of the bugbear when 
reduced to the dimensions of truth and 
of nature. Trace the history of that 
very town which sent forth the largest 
capital on these expeditions of barbarity. 
Tell me if she went into annihilation; or 
if in virtue of that vigorous principle of 
resurrection, in virtue of which com- 
merce is ever found to break an unfet- 
tered way out of all its difficulties and 
alarms, she did not rise to a prouder 
elevation than in those days when she 
pursued her guilty career through the 
distress of unoffending habitations, and 
steeled her heart against the shriek of 
ravaged homes and desolated villages. 
No, my brethren! the argument was 
nothing against the urgency of so right- 
eous a cause; but the argument was in 
itself < 4elusion, and should teach us 


THE SILVER SHRINES. 


[SERM. 


how to distinguish between the mcon- 


veniencies of a change in the direction 
of trade; and the miseries of its final 
and irrecoverable extinction—and at all 
events never, never to give it the 
weight of one particle of dust, when 
set In array against either one demand 
of justice or one object of Christian 


policy. | 
I have hitherto confined myself to 
the most direct and obvious application 
of the text that has been submitted to 
you, and have scarcely broken ground 
on what I conceive to be by far the 
most usefui and interesting of its applica- 
tions. I have not had time to enter into 
any details of that way in which the 
fancied interests and necessities of trade 
are set up in opposition to the cause not 
of public but of personal Christianity. 
How out of its maxims and its usages 
there has arisen what I would call the 
wisdom of this world, which opposeth 
itself to the foolishness of preaching— 
how the principles of the gospel in all 
their extent and spirituality, are some- 
how or other conceived to be utterly in- 
applicable to the business of its week- 
day operations. And in this way has a 
strong practical barrier been raised 
against the admission of Christian truth 
in all its entireness, and against obedi- 
ence to the lessons of Christian practice 
in all that power of universality which 
belongs tothem. This my time at pres- 
ent will not permit me to enter upon, 
and therefore it is that I confine the 
argument of this day to one lesson which 
even still is capable of being turned to 
practical application. For, let it be ob- 
served, that Britain has not yet done 
with the magnificence of her moral 
career—that her watchful eye is still 
going to and fro upon the earth, and ex- 
patiates over the whole of its ample 
territory as a field for the plans and the 
adventures of benevolence—that under 
her auspices the gospel is breaking forth 
beyond the limits of Christendom—and 
whether we look to the accomplishment 
of her labours in distant lands, or to 
the efforts of her religious population 
after the establishment of perpetual and 
universal peace among the nations, we 
see an expansion in her designs which, 
if crowned with success, as they nobly 


| were in the abolition of the slave trade 


XXVI. } 


of Africa, bids fair to spread the belief 
and the obedience of the gospei over 
the whole extent of our habitable world. 
“The interest of trade has been set up 
against these great operations. and it 
_ were well the argument of the Ephesian 
silversmith could be appreciated in all 
the impotence which belongs to it. 

But I hasten to a conclusion; and 
however dimly you may perceive the 
bearing of all I have alleged on the 
cause of Christ in the great matter of 
personal religion, I trust that the day is 
coming when an enlightened world shall 
be brought to acknowledge how the 
authority of the gospel is paramount to 
all the imaginary interests of trade— 


THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD WISER THAN MEN. 


575 


set aside all that is unchristian in its 
usages—how there is not one corruption 
of principle, or one relaxation from that 
simplicity and godly sincerity which it 
bears along with it, that the high and 
indispensable morality of the New Tes- 
tament does not bid away,—that all its 
practical advantages might be realized, 
though its votaries were all thoroughly 
pervaded in all their desires and all their 
doings by the spirit of the gospel—and 
that such a moral revolution, so far from 
arresting any one of the benefits of 
commerce, would give prosperity to all 
her movements, and make those com- 
forts which follow in her train to flow 
as largely as ever over the nations and 


how its pure and spiritual law should | families of the world. 


. SERMON XXVI. 


The Foolishness of God Wiser than Men.* 


“The foolishness of God is wiser than men.”—1 Cor. i. 25. 


Ir it be thought that this statement 
serves very much to reduce the import- 
ance of human learning, let it be ob- 
served, on the other hand. that still to 
human learning there belongs an im- 
portant function in the matter of Chris- 
tianity. One does not need to be the 
subject of a material impress upon his 
own person in order to judge of the ac- 
curacy between the device that is sub- 
mitted to his notice and the seal that is 
said to have conveyed it. Both may be 
foreign to himself; and yet he, by look- 
ing to the one and to the other, can see 
whether they are accurate counterparts. 
And, in like manner. a man of sagacity 
and of natural acquirements may never 
have received upon his own heart that 
impression of the Bible which the Holy 
Ghost alone has strength to effectuate. 
But still, if such an impression be of- 
fered to his notice in the person of 
another, he may be able both to detect the 
spurious, and in some measure to recog- 
nize the genuine marks of correspon- 
dence between the contents of Scripture, 


* The date of this sermon I have not been able to 
ascertain. 


on the one hand, and the creed or char- 
acter of its professing disciple, on the 
other. It is well when such a man 
looks, in the first instance. to the writ- 
ten word; and by aid of the grammar 
and lexicon, and all the resources of 
philology, evinces the literal doctrine 
that is graven thereupon. It is also 
well when he looks, in the second in- 
stance. to the human subject, and by 
aid either of natural shrewdness or of a 
keen metaphysical inspection into the 
arcana of character, drags forth to light 
that moral and intellectual picture 
which the doctrine of the Bible is said 
to have left upon the soul. If there be 
a single alleged convert upon earth who 
cannot stand such a trial when fairly 
conducted, he is a pretender, and wears 
only a counterfeit and not the genuine 
stamp of Christianity. And thus it is, 
that he who has no part whatever in 
the teaching that cometh from God— 
who is still a natural man, and has not 
received the things of the Spirit, may, 
to a certain extent, judge the preten- 
sions of him who conceives that the 
Holy Ghost has taken of the things of 


576 


Christ, and shown them to his soul. 
Hfe can institute a sound process of 
comparison between the testimonies of 
Scripture, which a natural criticism has 
made palpable to him, and those traces 
of the soul which a natural sagacity of 
observation has also made palpable to 
him; and without himself sharing in 
an unction from the Holy Ghost, or 
being sealed by the Spirit of God unto 
a personal meetness for the inheritance 
of the saints, still may he both be able 
to rectify and restrain the escapes of 
fanaticism, and also to recall the de- 
partures that heresy is making from the 
law and from the testimony. 

The work of Bishop Horsley against 
Unitarianism is a work which erudition 
and natural talent are quite competent 
to the production of. It is the fruit of 
a learned and laborious research into 
ecclesiastical antiquities. and a vigor- 
ous argumentatious application of the 
materials that he had gathered, to that 
controversy on the field of which he ob- 
tained so proud and pre-eminent a con- 
quest. We would not even so much as 
hazard a conjecture on the personal 
Shristianity of this able and highly 
gifted individual—we simply affirm, 
that for the execution of the important 
service which he at that time rendered 
to the cause, his own personal Chris- 
tianity was not indispensable. And 
whether or not, by the means of a 
spiritual discernment, he was enabled 
to take off from the inscribed Christian- 
ity of the record an effectual impression 
of it upon his own soul, it was well that, 
by the natural expedients of profound 
sense and profound scholarship, he 
cleared away that cloud in which his 
antagonist, Dr. Priestly, might have 
shrouded the face of the record both 
from the natural and spiritual discern- 
ment of other men. It is possible both 
to know what the doctrine of the Bible 
is, and most skilfully and irresistibly 
to argument it. without having caught 
the impress of the doctrine upon our 
own soul. It is possible for a man not 
to have come himself into effective per- 
sonal contact with the seal of holy writ, 
and yet to demonstrate the character of 
the seal, and purge away its obscuri- 
ties, and make it stand legibly out, 
which it must do ere it can stand im- 


THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD WISER THAN MEN. 


a ea ee ee 


[SERM. 


pressively out to the view of others. 
There are many who look with an evil 
eye to the endowments of the English 
Church, and to the indolence of her dig- 
nitaries; but to that Church the theo- 
logical literature of our nation stands 
indebted for her begt acquisitions; and 
we hold it a refreshing spectacle, at 
any time that meagre Socinianism pours 
forth a new supply of flippancies and 
errors, when we behold, as we have 
often done, an armed champion come 
forth in full equipment from some high 
and lettered retreat of that noble hier- 
archy. Nor can we grudge her the 
wealth of all her endowments when we 
think how well, under her venerable 
auspices, the battles of orthodoxy have 
been fought, that in this holy warfare 
they are her sons and her soldiers who 
have been ever foremost in the field, 
ready at all times to face the threaten- 
ing mischief, and by the might of their 
ponderous erudition to overbear iff 

But if human talent be available to 
the purpose of demonstrating the char- 
acter of the seal, it is also in so far 
available to the purpose of judging of 
the accuracy of the impression. The 
work, perhaps, which best exemplifies 
this, is that of President Edwards on 
the Conversions of New England, and 
in which he proposes to estimate their 
genuineness by comparing the marks 
that had been left on the person of the 
disciple with the marks that are in- 
scribed on the book of the law and of 
the testimony. He was certainly much 
aided in his processes of discrimination 
upon this subject by the circumstance 
of being a genuine convert himself, and 
so of being furnished with materials for 
the judgment in his own heart, and that 
stood immediately submitted to the eye 
of his own consciousness. But yet no 
one could, without the metaphysical 
faculty wherewith nature had endowed 
him, have conducted so subtle, and at 
the same time so sound and just an 
analysis as he has done; and no one 
without his power of insight among the 
mysteries of our nature—a power which 
belonged to his mind according to its 
original conformation—could have so 
separated the authentic operation of the 
word upon the character from the errors 
and the impulses of human fancy. 


‘XXVI.] THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD WISER THAN MEN. O77 

It is true that none but a spiritual | of the Christianity that had before been 
man could have taken so minute a sur-| fashioned on the person of a disciple— 
vey of that impression which the Holy | but it was in the latter capacity, and 
Ghost was affirmed to have made through | speaking of him as an instrument, that 
the preaching of the word upon many he fashioned it, as it were, with his own 
in a season of general awakening; but; hands. In the former capacity he sat 
few, also, are the spiritual men who | in judgmént as a critic on the resem- 
could have taken so masterly a survey, blance that there was between the seal 
and that just because they wanted the | of God’s word and the impression that 
faculties which accomplish their posses- , had been made on the fleshly tablet of 
sor for a shrewd and metaphysical dis-| a human heart. In the latter capacity 
cernment among the penetralia of the he himself took up the seal and gave 
human constitution. It is thus that by the impressing touch by which the heart 


the light of nature one may trace the 
characters which stand out upon the 
seal—and by the light of nature one | 
may be helped at least to trace the char- | 
acters that are left upon the human. 
subject in consequence of this supernal | 
application. Fanaticism is kept in check 
by human reason, and the soberness of 
the faith is vindicated. The extrava- 
gancies of all pretenders to a spiritual 
revelation are detected and made mani- 
fest, and the true disciple stands the test 
he is submitted to, even at the bar of 
the natural understanding. 

We cannot take leave of Edwards | 
without testifying the whole extent of 
the reverence that we bear him. On 
the arena of metaphysics he stood the 
highest of all his contemporaries, and 
that too at a time when Hume was 
aiming his deadliest thrusts at the foun- 
dation of morality, and had thrown over 
the infidel cause the whole éc/at of his 
reputation. The American divine af. | 
fords perhaps the most wondrous exain- 
ple in modern times of one who stood | 
richly gifted both in natural and in| 
spiritual discernment; and we know not | 
what most to admire in him—whether 
the deep philosophy that issued from his | 








is conformed unto the obedience of the 
faith. The former was a speculative 
capacity, under which he acted as a 
connoisseur who pronounced on the ac- 
cordancy that obtained between the 
obedience of the Bible and the charac- 
ter that had been submitted to its influ- 
ence. The latter was an executive 
capacity, under which he acted as a 
practitioner who brought about this ac- 
cordancy. and so handled the doctrines 
of the Bible as to mould and to subordi 
nate thereunto the character of the pev- 
ple with whom he had to deal. In the 
one he was an overseer who inspected 
and gave his deliverance on the quality 
of another’s work, in the other he was 
the workman himself—and while as the 
philosopher he could discern, and dis- 
cern truly, between the sterling and the 
counterfeit in Christianity, still it was 
as the humble and devoted pastor that 
Christianity was made, or Christianity 
was multiplied in his hands. 

Now, conceive these two faculties 
which were exemplified in such rare and 
happy combination in the: person of 
Kdwards, to be separated the one from 
the other, and given respectively to two 
individuals. One of them would then 


pen, or the humble and child-like piety} be so gifted as that he could apply the 
that issued from his pulpit—whether | discriminating tests by which to judge 
when as an author, he deals forth upon | of Christianity—and the other of them 
his readers the subtleties of a profound | would be so gifted as that, instrument- 
argument, or when as a Christian min-| ally speaking, he could make Christians. 
_ister he deals forth upon his hearers the One of them could do what Edwards 
simplicities of the gospel—whether it is; did from the press—another of them 
when we witness the impression that he | could do what Edwards did from the 
made by his writings on the schools and | pulpit. Without such judges and over- 
high seats of literature, or the impres-| seers as the former, the faith of the 
sion that he made by his unlaboured } Christian world might be occasionally 
addresses on the plain consciences of a! disfigured by the excesses of fanaticism ; 
plain congregation. In the former ca-| but without such agents as the latter, 
pacity he could estimate the genuineness | faith might cease to be found—and the 
73 





578 


abuses be got rid of only by getting rid 
of the whole stock upon which such 
abuses are occasionally grafted. 

It is here that Churches, under the 
domination of a worldly and unsancti- 
fied priesthood, are apt to go astray. 
They confide the cause wherewith they 
are intrusted to the merely intellectual 
class of labourers, and they have over- 
looked, or rather have violently and 
impetuously resisted the operative class 
of labourers. They conceive that all is 
to be done by regulation, and that noth- 
ing but what is mischievous is to be 
done by impulse. Their measures are 
generally all of a sedative, and few or 
none of them of a stimulating tendency. 
Their chief concern is to repress the 
pruriencies of religious zeal, and not to 
excite or foster the zeal itself By this 
process they may deliver their Kstab- 
lishment of all extravagances, so as that 
we shall no longer behold within its 
limits any laughable or offensive cari- 
cature of Christianity; but who does 
not see that by this process they may 
also deliver the Establishment of Chris- 
tianity altorether—and that all our ex- 
nibitions of genuine godliness may be 
made to disappear under the same with- 
ering influence which deadens the ex- 
crescences that occasionally spring from 
it. It is quite a possible thing for the 
same Church to have a proud compla- 
cency in the law, and argument, and 
professional science of certain of its 
ministers, and along with this to have 
a proud contempt for the pious earnest- 
ness and pious activity of certain other 
of its ministers—in other words it may 
applaud the talent by which Christian- 
ity is estimated, but discourage the tal- 
ent by which Christianity is made; and 
thus, while it continues to be graced by 
the literature and accomplishments of 
its members, may it come to be reduced 
into a- kind of barren and useless inef- 
ficiency as to the great practical purposes 
for which it was ordained. 

To judge of an impression requires 
one species of talent—to make an im- 
pression requires another. They both 
may exist in very high perfection with 
the same individual, as in the case al- 
ready quoted ; but they may also exist 
apart, and often, in particular, may the 
latter of the two be found in great effi- 


THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD WISER THAN MEN. 


[SERM. 


ciency and vigour, when the criticism and 
the metaphysics necessary to complete 
the former of the two may be entirel 

wanting. The right policy ofa CBuseh 
is to encourage both these talents to the 
uttermost, and not to prevent the evils 
of a bad currency by laying such an 
arrest on the exercise of the latter talent 
as that we shall have no currency at all. 
It must be produced ere it can be as- 
sayed ; and it is possible so to chill and 
to discourage the productive faculty in 
our Church as that its assaying faculty 
shall have no samples on which to sit 
in judgment. This will universally be 
the result in every Church where a 
high-toned contempt for what it holds 
to be fanaticism is the alone principle 
by which it is actuated, and where a 
freezing negative is ever sure to come 
forth on all those activities which serve 
to disturb the attitude of quiescence into 
which it has sunk and settled. The 
leading measures of such a Church are 
all founded on the imagination that the 
religious tendencies of,our nature are 
so exuberant as that they need to be 
kept in check, instead of being in fact 
so dormant as that they need work, and 
watchfulness, and all that is strenuous 
and painstaking in the office of an evan- 
gelist, for the purpose of being kept 
alive. The true Christian policy of a 
Church is to avail itself of all the zeal 
and all the energy which are to be found 
both among its ecclesiastics and its lay- 
men for the production of a positive 
effect among our population—and then, 
should folly or fanaticism come forward 
along with it, fearlessly to confide the 
chastening of all this exuberance to the 
sense and the scholarship, and the sound 
intellectual Christianity, for the diffusion 
of which over the face of our Establish- 
ment the Establishment itself has made 
such ample provision. Such is our im- 
pression of nature’s lethargy and dead- 
ness. that we are glad when anything 
comes forward, that we are pleased to 
behold any symptoms of spiritual life or 
vegetation at all; and so far from being 
alarmed by the rumours of a stir and a 
sens.tion and an enthusiasm in an 

quarter of the land, we are ready to hail 
it as we would the promise of some 
coming regeneration. A policy the di- 
rect opposite of this is often the reigning 


XXVI. } 


policy of a Church, and under its blas- 
ting operation spurious and genuine 
Christianity are alike obliterated. The 
work of pulling up the tares is carried 
on so furiously that the wheat is pulled 
up along with it; the vineyard is rifled 
of its goodliest blossoms, as well as of 
its noxious and pestilential weeds ; and 
thus the upshot of the process of extir- 
pating fanaticism may be to turn the 
fruitful field into a wilderness, and spread 
desolation over all its borders. 

A*Church so actuated does nothing 
but check the excrescences of spiritual 
growth, and may do it so effectually as 
to reduce to a naked trunk what else 
might have sent forth its clustering 
branches, and yielded in goodly abund- 
ance the fruits of piety and righteous- 
ness. There is no positive strength put 
forth by it on the side of vegetation, but 
all on the side of repressing its hated 
overgrowth. It makes use only of. one 
instrument, and that is the pruning- 
hook, as if by its operation alone all 
the purposes of husbandry could be 
served. Its treatment of humanity pro- 
ceeds on such an excessive fertility of 
religion in the human heart, that all 
the toil and strenuousness of ecclesi- 
astics must be given to the object of 
keeping it down and so confining it 
within the limits of moderatism, instead 
of such a natural barrenness, that this 
toil and this strenuousness should rather 
be given to the various and ever-plying 
activities of an evangelist who is instant 
in season and out of season. 
that the outfield of sectarianism may 
exhibit a totally different aspect from 
the inclosed and well-kept garden of an 
Kstablishment. In the former there 
may be a positive and desirable crop 
along with the weeds and rankness 
which have been suffered to grow up 
unchastened. In the latter there may 
be nothing that offendeth save the one 
deadly offence of a vineyard so cleansed 
and purified, and thwarted in all its veg- 
etative tendencies, as to offer from one 
end to the other of it one unvaried ex- 
panse of earthliness. 

We therefore do wrong in laying such 
a weight of discouragement on the la- 
bourers who produce—and throwing 
the mantle of our protection and kind- 
ness only over the labourers who prune. 


THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD WISER THAN MEN. 


It is thus. 


579 


And what, it may be asked, are the 
ingredients of mightiest effect in the 
character and talents of a productive la- 
bourer? They are not his scholarship, 
and not his critical sagacity of discern- 
ment into the obscurities of Scripture, 
and not his searching or satirical insight 
among the mysteries of the human con- 
stitution. With these he may be helped 
to estimate the Christianity that has 
been formed, and to lop off its unseemly 
excrescences, but with these alone he 
will never positively rear on the founda- 
tion of nature the edifice itself This 
requires another set of qualifications, 
which may or may not exist along with 
that artificial learning to which we trust 
an adequate homage has been already 
rendered by us. ; 

We have already done homage to the 
importance of human learning on this 
matter. It acts as a fly to regulate the 
operation, but it is not the power which ° 
gives impulse to the operation. For 
the putting forth of this power we must 
look to men who bear upon their own 
hearts the impress of Christianity, 
whether they are with or without a 
very high and artificial scholarship. 
We must look to those who have the 
Spirit themselves, and who have power 
in their intercessions with God, and pre- 
vail so as to obtain the Spirit for others. 
We must look to those on whom the 
simple essentials of the Bible have made 
their practical impression, and who, 
through the very process of enlightening 
which they have experienced in their 
own souls, are able to reflect that pro- 
cess back again on the souls of those in 
whose behalf they are labouring. And 
we repeat it, that in both of our estab- 
lished Churches there is a high-toned 
contempt, not for that agency which can 
learnedly demonstrate the characters of 
the Bible, or cast ashrewd and intellec- 
tual regard on the impression that has 
been made by it, but for that agency 
which takes up the Bible and actually 
makes the impression—for that unlet- 
tered Methodism which in England has 
wrought its miracles, not of imaginary 


‘but of substantial grace upon the people 


—for that Sabbath teaching which, in 
the hands cf lay Christians, promised 
fair in our own country to be a mighty 
instrument for reclaiming the population 


580 


of our cities from the habits of profane- 
ness and profligacy into which they have 
wandered. 

There is a disposition on the part of 
official and formally constituted ecclesi- 
astics to regard such men as the quacks 
or empirics of theology, who have not 
had the benefit of their finished educa- 
tion, who belong not to the regular fac- 
ulty, and of whom therefore it may be 
feared that they are the bearers of dele- 
terious poison which acts with mis- 
chievous effect on the moral and intel- 
. léctual health of the great mass of the 
peasantry—those ready dupes of impos- 
ture whether in divinity or in medicine. 
They forget that there is not a perfect 
resemblance between these two profes- 
sions—that while in the one human 
science works the whole practical effect, 
in the other human science works none 
of it—that they are very plain doctrines 
of the Word, which are as accessible to 
the mind of a peasant as of a philoso- 
pher, urged home with efficacy by God’s 
Spirit—that Spirit which is surely as 
ready to be given to the ministrations 


DUTIES OF MASTERS AND SERVANTS. 


[SERM. 


of humble piety as of accomplished 
learning, seeing that God resisteth the 
proud and giveth grace to the humble— 
that it is thus that Christians are actu- 
ally made and multiplied in our land. 
And thus we fear that, in the contempt 
with which in both our Establishments, 
all the activities of religious zeal are 
now-a-days regarded—in the intolerance 
which they feel towards our more ardent 
and painstaking operatives in the cause, 
the Churches of both countries, while 
they retain the literary accomplishment 
which has so long adorned them, may 
wither into a kind of barren and use- 
less inefficiency as to the great practical 
purposes for which they were ordain- 
ed. And that mighty work of agency, 
which, if they were each to employ 
within their own bosom, might be turned 
to so mighty an account in the work of 
converting and moralizing our people, 
may either be discouraged into apathy 
or driven beyond the pale of the Estab- 
lishmment—may transfer to others the 
whole glory of extending and keeping 
alive the Christianity of our nation. 


SERMON XXVII. 


« Duties of Masters and Servants.* 


“ Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a 


a Master in heaven.”—Cooc. iv. 1. 


Ir is very observable of Christianity, 
that while at one time it equalizes all 
the various ranks and orders of life, at 
another it presses the performance of 
such duties, and the practice of such 
“submissions upon the lower orders as 
would seem to recognize a wider dis- 
tinction between one man and his fel- 
low than was ever contended for by the 
most groveling minions of despotism. 
It tells us of the essential equality of all 
men. It is ever coming into contact 
with the most striking and important 
points of this equality. It, with an in- 
trepid disregard of all the power and 
of all the grandeur of this world, deliv- 
ers such doctrines as are most humilia- 


* Preached at Glasgow, in June, 187. 


ting to the pride of the wealthy, :md as 
are most elevating to the hopes ard most 
sustaining to the dignity of the poor. 
This is a distinction which it makes lit- 
tle account of—when employed on those 
commanding generalities of the species, 
which form the great theme of the rev- 
elation from God to the world. And 
whether it adverts to the birth of man 
or to his dissolution—to the state of na- 
kedness in which he came into the 
world, or to the state of nakedness in 
which we go out of it—to the corrup- 
tion of the body after death, or its res- 
urrection to the judgment-seat—to the 
common relationship of all with our 
Lawgiver, or the common need and de- 
pendence of all upon one Saviour—in a 
word, whether it adverts to the infirmi- 


XXVII. ] 


ties of our present condition, or to our 
_ capacities for the bliss and immortality 
of another—in all these cases does it 
overlook the varieties of rank and of 
fortune, and viewing the whole brother- 
hood of mankind as the members of one 
common family, does it speak the same 
language to all, and hold out to all the 
same offers and the same invitations and 
the same injunctions. 

But one striking attribute of the 
Christian revelation is, that it leaves no 
one condition of humanity unprovided 
for. It not merely provides a rule and 
a doctrine for man in the general, but it 
has also its rules and its doctrines for 
all the leading specialties of office and 
of station which occur in society. And 
when, in particular, it condescends upon 
the duties of a servant, which it repeat- 
edly does, one were apt to think that it 
assigns him to such a depth of humilia- 
tion as to inflict a positive outrage on 
the rights of ourcommon nature. Iam 
not adverting to the duty of not purloin- 
ing—for this is not an apposite exem- 
plification of the remark—this duty 
forming only part of a fair and equal 
interchange of obligation between the 
parties. But what are we to think of 
servants being enjoined to obey their 
masters in all things, and instead of do- 
ing so in the spirit of a grumbling re- 
luctance, to do it heartily and cheerfully, 
and of good-will? What are we to 
think of servants, subject as they are to 
the outbreaking of the most unmerited 
and ungenerous abuse from their mas- 
ters, being called upon not to answer 
again? Nay, what are we to think of 
the passive and the peaceful demeanour 
they are called upon to observe, and that 
not merely when they suffer, but when 
they suffer wrongfully /—of their being 
told that it is not enough that they take 
it patiently when they are buffeted for 
their faults, but that they should take it 
patiently even when they do well and 
are buffeted? Oh! how after the bur- 
den of such an indignity as this, can the 
condition of a servant be redeemed from 
the imputation of being indeed the most 
disgracefully ignoble that any son or 
daughter of humanity can fill! What 
security is there for the protection and 
the privilege of this numerous class of 
society ? and what remaineth either to 


DUTIES OF MASTERS AND SERVANTS. _ 581 


re 


exalt their office, or to sustain the spirit 
of its occupier, if it shall thus be thrown 
open and defenceless to the caprices of 
every petty tyrant, and no resistance be 
allowed to the wantonness and the wil- 
fulness of his manifold provocations ? 
And yet, my brethren, the spirit of a 
servant never reacheth to a truer or 
more noble elevation than when—keep- 
ing down the tendencies of nature in 
submission to the will of Christ—he 
maintains an uncomplaining patience 
under all the wrongs and all the severi- 
ties which are inflicted upon him—and 
when instead of resisting any insult or 
any aggravation he may meet with, he 
offers it up in silence unto the Lord. 
He never stands upon higher ground 
than when this is his conduct and these 
are the principles upon which he rests 
it. He never so strikingly puts forth 
the high attitude of a Being who is im- 
mortal, and who knows his immortality, 
as when, upon his path being crossed 
by injury, he mildly forbears all anger, 
and resolutely bridling the expression 
of it, quietly commits his judgment un- 
to God. His mind is never so filled 
with sublime anticipations, nor do the 
movements of his inner man ever beto- 
ken so much of the true sense and soul 
of dignity, as when, looking up to the 
Lord Jesus Christ as his master, and 
looking forward to the reward of the 
inheritance, and fired with the ambition 
of adorning the doctrine of the Saviour 
in all things, and having the Spirit of 
glory and of God resting on him, he 
can move his duteous and unruffled way 
amid the injustice of a master’s exac- 
tions, or the still more galling injustice 
of a master’s unmerited reproaches and 
unmerited frowns. The long-suffering 
of a Christian servant may in these 
circumstances look a tame and a pusil- 
lanimous thing to those who look to it 
with this world’s eyes, and pass their 
judgment on it upon the world’s princi- 
ples; but I am quite sure, that in the 
high estimate of eternity, a servant 
never makes a greater exhibition of 
character, or reaches to a nearer resem- 
blance of the Godhead himself, than 
when he comes off a conqueror from 
such a trial of the charity that endureth 
—and when I put him by the side of 
the fretful oppressor, who is either so 


582 


unprincipled as to defraud him, or so 
outrageous as to be ever and anon pur- 
suing him with his restless and vindic- 
tive effusions, neither my reverence for 
his superior wealth, nor for the chair of 
little brief authority on which he sits, 
can restrain me from offering to the at- 
tendant who toils beside him, the tribute 
of a more honourable testimony, and 
the homage of a profounder reverence. 
But this is not all which Christianity 
has done for that humble class of soci- 
ety whose cause every minister of Chris- 
tianity should rejoice to advocate. It 
has not merely dignified the character 
of the believing servant, by supplying 
him with prospects which serve to cover 
and nobly to redeem all the wrongs and 
provocations that may be laid on him 
in this world—wherever its.influences 
extend, it establishes in behalf of the 
servant a firmer protection than can be 
done by any one of the artificial insti- 
tutions of society. Law may shield 
him from the grosser violations that are 
made on his person or his property ; but 
law cannot enter under his master’s 
roof, and there protect him from the 
countless ills of domestic tyranny. It 
cannot lay its restraints on the tone, or 
the habit, or the manner of a domineer- 
ing insolence. It cannot forbid the 
constant harassings of peevishness. It 
cannot soften or relax the brooding 
scowl of displeasure. It cannot put an 
interdict on those haughty expressions 
of imperiousness or disdain which are 
felt by many a servant to be a greater 
hardship than all the drudgery that is 
laid upon him. It cannot make it im- 
perative upon his superior ever to feel 
in his heart a cordiality towards all his 
domestics, and ever to maintain in all 
his intercourse with them a discreet and 
a kindly utterance. It cannot thus 
sweeten the toils of his employment, or 
make his burden feel light unto him. 
But what law cannot do for him, Chris- 
tianity can do. It can enter his mas- 
ter’s conscience. It can pour its influ- 
ence over all the exercises of his history. 
It can subordinate him wholly to the 
authority of its doctrines and its laws. 
It prescribes a duty to the master as 
well as to the servant; and there is not 
an injunction which it Jays upon the 
latter, without a counterpart injunction 


DUTIES OF MASTERS AND SERVANTS. 


» [SERM. 


which it lays as bindingly and as im- 
peratively upon the former. If you are 
charged against the act of trespassing 
upon their property by purloining it— 
they are as expressly charged not to 
withhold from you any rightful claim, 
but to give you those things which are 
just and equal. If you, on the one 
hand, are forbidden to answer again— 
they, on the other, are forbidden the use 
of all insolent and abusive language. 
Ye masters, do the same things to them 
which I now enjoin them to do unto 
you, forbearing threatening. If you 
are reminded of your relation to Christ 
as His servant, they are also reminded 
of the very same relation, and are 
taught to recollect how they have a 
Master in heaven, and how with Him 
there is no respect of persons. And 
finally, if you are not to presume upon 
this equality because you have believing 
masters, but rather on that account to 
do them service—they, on the other 
hand, are to have a constant respect to 
the consideration that you are brethren, 
and heirs of the same hope, and fellow- 
travellers to the same eternity. 
Thus let Christianity find an entrance 
among you, and all will be righted. It 
will do more both for peace and for en- 
joyment than can be done by any poli- 
tical adjustment whatever. It reaches 
where law cannot reach, and goes great- 
ly beyond it in the provision which it 
makes both for the respect that should 
be awarded to the higher, and for the 
indulgence and security that should be 
extended to the lower orders of society. 
It disposes the former party to concede 
a great deal more*than would satisfy 
the latter, and the latter party to sub- 
mit in patience to a great deal more 
than would ever be claimed or exerted 
by the former. All that can be achieved 
by a legal or political contest is, that 
the parties meet each other halfway— 
all it can do is to draw a rigid line 
of demarkation, beyond which neither 
party is to pass without the outcry of 
resentment being lifted up by the other, 
or the proceedings of resistance being 
entered upon. (tive me the most pure 
and efficient system of law in a country 
without Christianity, and you may see 
the parties standing where they should 
be, but standing in the proud attitude 


XXVI. | 


of defiance, and regarding each other 
with the haughty feelings of jealousy 
and disdain. Give me Christianity, 
and in addition to all the security of 
law, which in no wise or enlightened 
country will ever be neglected, you will 
see each party going beyond the rigid 
line of equality, and that not for the 
sake of any selfish acquirement to itself, 
but for the sake of some free and gener- 
ous concession to others. You will see 
the limit of strict reciprocity often dis- 
regarded and trodden upon—not, how- 
ever, in the way of encroachment, but 
in the way of kind and effusive liberal- 
ity; and instead of a wall of partition, 
guarded with fearful vigilance by those 
who stand on the respective sides of it, 
would you see them mingling together 
as a wide and common species, and 
even going beyond the rigour of integ- 
rity in the exercise of all the humilities 
of the gospel, and in the fair flow and 
indulgence of all its charities. 

But I must not forget that the text 
only speaks of those things which are 
just and equal, and that it therefore con- 
fines me to the duty which lies upon 
masters not to trespass on the line of 
equity in their dealings with their serv- 
ants—not to exceed in their demands 
upon them the terms of their agree- 
ment, and not to fall short of those 
terms in the awdrded remuneration— 
not to exact more work from the serv- 
ant than was either specified by the ex- 
press stipulation, or than the general 
habits of the place rendered a matter of 
clear and honest understanding between 
the parties—not to fall short in the 
amount of the payment. or what is of 
mighty importance to the comfort of a 
laboring family, not to come behind the 
time of the payment of the wages that 
are due to him. Ina word, were I to 
ramify the text into all its applications, 
I might urge it upon you masters to 
be punctual in all> your transactions 
with those who are beneath you—amid 
all the laxity and delay and cravings 
for a little more indulgence which are 
so usual in the world of merchandise, to 
struggle that your servants at least 
shall not suffer from the operation of 
such a habit—to make at all times a 
determined exception in behalf of those 
who have the whole of their subsistence 


DUTIES OF MASTERS AND SERVANTS, 





583 


depending on the wages they so hardly 
earn from you—to make it~a primary 
and indispensable point of obligation 
that their claims shall be attended to, 
and rather than that a single dependent 
should remain unpaid, to make every 
retrenchment upon your luxuries and 
your comforts; and above all, what 
more frequently disables a*man from 
doing justice to those whom he employs 
than anything else, to make a most 
strict and conscientious retrenchment 
upon your speculations. 

But the occurrence of the term spec- - 
ulation suggests to me one remark, 
which I beg to come forward with. 
You will most readily grant that you 
have no right, for the purpose of regal- 
ing your appetite for delicacies, to kee 
a costlier table than you are able to de- 
fray, and thus for the sake of a present 
indulgence, to trench upon that fund 
out of which your servants should ob- 
tain the full and regular amount of 
their wages. Now extend this princi- 
ple—You have no right, for the purpose 
of regaling your avaricious desires after 
a fortune, to embark on a costlier spec- 
ulation than is warranted by your ca- 
pabilities and your means, and thus for 
the sake of a future prospect to put to 
hazard the maintenance of all those 
families whose fathers you have press- 
ed into the service of your ambition. 
You have no right to put to a desperate 
throw, I will not say your own wealth, 
but those numerous pittances which, in 
the shape of unpaid work, constitute 
the dependence and the all of those 
artificers whom you may seduce to 
share in the risk, and whom you may 
involve in the ruin of some rash and 
delusive enterprise. If it be a piece of 
the most selfish inconsideration toward 
the servant whom you hire, or toward 
the dealer from whom you buy, to dress 
more magnificently, or to build more 
magnificently, or to entertain more 
magnificently, than is consistent with 
the power of punctually discharging 
the wages of the one or the accounts of 
the other—then be assured, my breth- 
ren, that it is in every way as substan- 
tial, and [ am sure as calamitous a 
piece of injustice to the workmen of 
this city, to trade more magnificently 
than on every principle of sober-minded 


584 


computation is consistent with the pow- 
er of rendering to them the stipulated 
return for the service they have yielded. 
In calling upon you to repress this 
spirit of adventure, and to confine your 
measures Within the compass of your 
means, [ am pleading their cause—I 
am pointing your eye to a moral check 
upon that mischievous spirit of ambi- 
tion which [ honestly believe to be the 
main cause of the sufferings of our 
country—I am telling you that he who 
hasteth to be rich not only pierces him- 
self through with many sorrows, .but 
involves himself in the guilt of many 
crimes—that among others he commits 
an act of cruelty upon those whom he 
has induced to follow in the train of his 
personal aggrandizement—that, be it 
with thoughtlessness or be it with de- 
liberation, he has, for the sake of self, 
committed the interest of the poor man 
and of the labourer to an ocean of dark 
and hazardous contingencies—that he, 
and such as he, are deeply responsible 
for those successive tides of adversity 
which set in at intervals upon the land 
—and that though every future harvest 
should pour abundance into our grana- 
ries, and every future Parliament should 
glow with virtuous and enlightened pat- 
riotism, and every future administration 
should give its unwearied labours to 
the cause of freedom and the best inter- 
ests of the people, yet with this single 
corruption in the hearts of private indi- 
viduals—with this rancorous and un- 
bridled fervency of desire after wealth 
venting itself forth on extravagant spec- 
ulation—with this sanguine and adven- 
turous spirit which outruns calculation, 
and dashes its impetuous way, unmind- 
ful of the ruin which it scatters among 
the habitations of industry—with this, 
I say, in as tumultuous and unchecked 
operation as ever, we shall be doomed 
to see still what we have seen before— 
the ebbs and the flows of an unceasing 
alternation—at one time the feverish ca- 
reer of giddy and high-flown enterprise 
and at another the sure visitation of dis- 
tress, with all the bitterness of its out- 
eries and all the gloom of its forebodings. 

Suffer me one word more upon this part 
of my subject. [know as wellas you that 
misfortune, the pure and single opera- 
tion of misfortune, may entail even on a 


DUTIES OF MASTERS AND SERVANTS. 


[SERM. 


Christian merchant the adversity of 
a ruinous and unlooked-for visitation. 
And therefore it is not for us to point 
the finger of condemnation at any indi- — 
vidual, but it is our part to bear in 
mind how it is to another that he stand- 
eth or falleth; and we in humility and 
charity should abstain from the exercise 
of judgment on individual cases, and in 
no one case forget how the misfortunes 
of the virtuous ought with every gener- 
ous bosom to place them on a higher 
elevation of respect than before, and to 
draw toward them a more affecting 
sentiment both of tenderness and ven- 
eration. But, on the other hand, you 
know as well as I do, that misfortune 
is not the alone cause of vicissitude in 
the history of business—that there is 
such a thing as the spirit of illegitimate 
adventure, which, being the very spirit 
of idolatry to the world, comes within 
the scope of those denunciations which 
ought to be thundered from the pulpit 
on every shade and degree of ungodli- 
ness; and that while we mean not the 
slightest insinuation against a single 
person concerned in these transactions, 
this general spirit ought to be contend- 
ed with and exposed in all its culpabili- 
ty, and protested against not merely on 
account of its character, but on account 
of its*consequences, as a spirit which in 
itself areues an utter devotedness to the 
creature, and which in effect robs many 
an industrious and deserving family of 
their just and equal expectations. 

I conclude my present remarks upon 
this text with an observation which I 
think will recommend itself to your own 
experience of human life and character. 
You will perceive that the apostle is 
giving the advice of my text to his own 
formed and educated Christians. He 
is asking those who were masters 
among the members of the Church at 
Colosse to give such things as are just 
and equal to their servants, and he rec- 
ommends this advice by a most affect- 
ing and at the same time an exclusively 
religious motive, “ You know that you 
have a Master in heaven’—one to 
whom you are looking up for the re- 
ward of your services—one who as He 
has said that as you forgive others, so 
will you be forgiven, also says, that 
with what measure you mete it shall 


XXvIL.] 


be measured to you again; and havea 
care lest by the act of withholding from 
your servants their just and lawful 
right. your Master who is in heaven 
Shall on the great day of account lay 
upon you some awful visitation of re- 
membrance and retribution. Observe, 
then. that all this right and becoming 
_ conduct which he is prescribing to mas- 
ters. is conduct subordinated to the in- 
fluence of a religious consideration. and 
the power of a religious motive. Now. 
it so happens that in this highly liberal 
and cultivated country, there are many 
who require the operation of no such 
motive to incline them to all the more 
obvious and ordinary acts of justice 
toward their servants and inferiors. 
There is positively a very great num- 
ber of men whom I could name, and 
whom [ could not call Christians and 
yet who at the same time could not 
find it in their hearts to disappoint the 
just expectations of their dependents. or 
to fall by a single iota behind the fulfil- 
ment of their more obvious and ordina- 
ry claims. I have seen men who. with- 
out Christianity at all, would positively 
quiver with indignation at the idea of a 
poor man and his family being reft of 
their dues. They, by a pure movement 
of generosity, would cheerfully under- 
take their cause—they would spurn with 
their whole soul taking any advantage 
whatever of a servant’s helplessness or 
a servant’s simplicity ; and to them the 
meanness and the inhumanity of such 
a proceeding would altogether appear so 
odious as positively to revolt them 
against the imagination of it. All this, 
you will observe, without Christianity 
—without the impulse of any such mo- 
tive as is supplied bya reference to God 
as our Master who is in heaven—with- 
out the mingling, in fact. of any relig- 
ion in the business at all, but by the 
pure force of such a natural generosity 
of heart as is, to speak the truth, very 
prevalent in this our age among the 
higher orders of society. Now, for the 
sake of the important theological lesson 
upon which this question bears, let me 
observe, that the general spirit of one 
age is often more favourable to the 
growth of certain accomplishments of 
character than the general spirit of an- 
other age, and that such is the influ- 
74 


DUTIES OF MASTERS AND SERVANTS. 


585 


ence of this general spirit in the way of 
example and of repetition as to beget 
certain social and humane virtues, in- 
dependently of the operation of any re- 
ligious principle whatever; and that 
thus what would need the stimulus of a _ 
Christian motive in some former gene 
ration, might in the present generation 
be very extensively practised without 
the operation of any such motive at all. 
It marks a very rude and untamed state 
of society in the days of the apostle. that 
in his Epistles to Timothy and Titus, 
he should find it necessary to lay it 
down, with the authority of inspiration, 
as one of the requisites of a good bishop, 
that he should be no striker. 

A Christian motive was necessary, it 
would appear, to keep a bishop of those 
days from doing a thing which any 
bishop or minister now-a-days would be 
restrained from doing by a sense of its 
utter vulgarity and dis#racefulness. A 
good bishop of those days would not do 
the thing because he saw a_ prohibition 
against it in the writings of the apostle, 
and to do it in the face of this prohi- — 
bition would be ungodly. But any 
bishop, good or not. of the present day, 
would not do the thing because, wheth- 
er he saw the prohibition or not in the 
book of God, he feels all the power of 
a prohibition in the general standard of 
manners, and to do it in the face of this 
standard would be ungentlemanly. I 
bring this forward merely in the way 
of illustration. For the truth is, that 
in respect of the duty of my text, too, 
the sense of the age has undergone a 
wondrous revolution, and has been great- 
ly softened and liberalized since the 
apostle’s days. If the picture which 
James gives of the rich men of his 
time were to be realized on an indi- 
vidual now, it would have the effect of 
making that individual an outcast from 
society. Were aman only convicted of 
keeping back by fraud the hire of his 
labourers, it would bring down upon 
him the execration of his fellows as 
well as the denunciations of God’s out- 
raged law. The latter motive might 
be essential to the restraining of men 
from this cruelty in cases where the for- 
mer motive had no operation; but 
where the former motive has operation, 
as it has to a very great and general 


586 


SERMON TO THE YOUNG. 


[SERM 


extent in our own country, then without | idea of any departure from it, most 


the operstion of the latter motive at all, 
or, in other words, without one particle 
of homage to the author of Christianity, 
might we see men exhibit a most rigid 
adherence to the duty of my text, spurn- 
ing with a quick sense of honour the 


SERMON 


faithfully acting up to all the ordinar 
claims and expectations of their depend- 
ents, and earning a character in society 
as the most humane and righteous and 
honourable of its members. 


XX VIII, aes 


Sermon to the Young.* 


" Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I 
would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts.”—Zacu. vii. 13. : 


He who cried in the first clause of | 
this verse is the Lord Himself, as is 
evident from the verses that immediately 
precede this text. The thing which the 
prophet complains of is, that when the 
Lord of hosts spake to them on a former 
occasion, saying, Execute true judg- 
ment, and show mercy and compassion 
every man to his brother—when He 
said this to the people of the land they 
refused to hearken, and stopped their 
ears that they should not hear; and 
“ they made their hearts as an adamant- 
stone, lest they should hear the law, and 
the words which the Lord of hosts hath 
sent in His Spirit by the former pro- 
phets ;” and therefore it was that there 
came a great wrath upon them from the 
Lord of hosts. And no doubt when 
visited with affliction, when brought 
very low because of their sins, when 
death and destruction stared them in 
the face, and the urgent desire of their 
hearts was for deliverance, they gave 
vent to their desire by prayer. But 
mark the upshot of their having refused 
to hear God on a former occasion—He 
refused to hear them on the present oc- 
casion. And this is the meaning of the 
text— Therefore it is come to pass, that 
as He cried, and they would not hear ; 
so they cried, and I would not hear, 
saith the Lord of hosts.” 











* The date attached to the original short-hand man- 
uscript of this sermon is October 31, 1822. Between 
this date, and that of the discourse immediately preced- 
ing, the reader will perceive that an interval of more 
than five years occurs—an interval which he is to im- 
agine as filled up by those discourses which have al- 
ready been published. 


Now most of you who are here pres- 
ent are young in life, and perhaps 
scarcely have known what it is to be 
afflicted. At all events, there is nothing 
more likely than that many of you may 
have thought little of the time when the 
last sickness shall come upon you, and 
you shall have at last taken yourselves 
to the bed from which you are never 
more to rise. Full of life and vigour, 
and rejoicing, perhaps, in the prospect 
of many days, your imagination may 
never have seriously dwelt on that aw- 
ful event which is certainly coming upon 
you, even as it has come upon all who 
have gone before you. Your hearts 
may have been altogether with lessons, 
and play, and companionship, and such 
work as parents or masters have put 
into your hand—and little may you 
have reflected that, after all, the end of 
the whole matter on earth is, that you 
shall die—and that every minute which 
you breathe brings you that minute 
nearer to the time at which you shall 
die—and that this terrible day is com- 
ing upon you with a speed and a cer- 
tainty from which there is no escaping. 
These are simple truths, my young 
friends; but it is just from the want of 
being impressed’ by plain and simple 
truths that there is so much of sin and 
suffering. in the world. It is just be- 
cause men will not take heed to the 
near and the obvious matters that lie 
before them, that they have gone so far 
astray in wickedness, and that so many 
are on the road to ruin everlasting. The 
great and practical error of man does 


XXVIII. ] SERMON TO 
not lie in his being ignorant of what is 
difficult to understand, but in his being 
heedless of that which is familiar to all 
understandings. It is not so much be- 
cause my people will not learn, but 
because my people will not consider, 
that they are found on the path which 
leadeth to the chambers of hell. And 
so it is with many of you. You do not 
need to learn that you have to die; for 
this is what you all know as well as I 
can tell you. But you stand lament- 
ably in need of more thoughtfulness so 
as that you may consider, and hold it 
often in serious and solemn remem- 
brance, that you are to die. This is 
what I want to impress upon you now. 
The dying bed will come—a weary sea- 
. son of pain and breathlessness and in- 
sufferable Janguor is before you. The 
path that leads from the present world 
to the next world has to be traversed by 
all who are here present. How soon [ 
know not; but that it will come sooner 
or later, you are all as well assured as I 
can possibly be. It is not a new truth 
that I offer to your notice, but an old, 
that I would earnestly set forth to your 
thoughtful and tender and feeling recol- 
lection. 

For think, my young friends, what 
in all likelihood will take place on that 
affecting occasion. You will then be 
standing on the brink of eternity, and 
it will look a dark and awful transition 
to cross over from the land of sense to 
the vast and unknown land that is be- 
fore you, and a certain dread will lay 
hold of you, as you contemplate the 
fathomless abyss into which you are 
sinking; and then under the urgency 
of the fearfulness that may have over- 
taken you, will you gladly cry to the 
Lord that He may guide you im safety 
through the mysterious passage, and 
land you on a peaceful and happy 
shore. And if the thought of guilt 
shall then visit your bosoms, this may 
bring the foretaste of hell along with it 
—and so, amid the tossings of a sinner’s 
restless bed, may you betake yourselves 
to prayer, and cry to the Lord for deli- 
verance. 

Now the thing which so deeply con- 
cerns you to know is, that when you 
cry then He may not hear you, and that 
because He is crying now, and you do 


THE YOUNG. 587 
not hear Him; you may lift the voice 
of prayer upon your death-beds, and He 
may turn a deaf ear thereto, because 
now in the heyday and cheerfulness of 
youth, when He lifts the voice of au- 
thority and bids you stand in awe and 
sin not, some of you, it is feared. are 
turning a deaf ear to all His warnings, 
and will none of His reproof. If you 
are heedless and unconcerned now about 
what He says to you, this is the return 
that will come upon you—He will then 
laugh at your calamity. and mock when 
your fear cometh. Oh, how much it 
concerns you to lay up through life 
what you will find in stead and in store 
when you come upon your death-beds ! 
This is the simple expedient by which 
you may lay up a provision for the day 
of your extremity: Listen to God now, 
and He will not refuse to listen to you 
then. Turn to Him a willing ear in 
the morning of your days, and in the 
evening of your days you will expe- 
rience Him to be a God of good-will 
and of graciousness. Remember your 
Creator in youth, and He will not for- 
get you in old age. Be found of Him 
now when He is seeking after you—so 
that when you come to the bed of your 
last agonies, you will not have a Sa- 
viour to seek, but a Saviour to enjoy. 

But to be more particular, we should 
specify what is the cry or proclamation 
that God is lifting up now, and by your 
neglect of which you may bring down 
upon you God’s neglect of you then, 
when the hour and the power of dark- 
ness shall at length overtake you. In 
the text it was God’s law that He was 
proclaiming ; it was His word which by 
His spirit He had put into the mouths 
of the old prophets; this was what He 
spoke in the hearing of the people, and 
they made their hearts, it is said, as an 
adamant-stone against Him. They put 
a hardy and resolute defiance against 
the calls of authority and the threats of 
vengeance. When he entreated their 
obedience, they disregarded. In the 
day of their fancied security they re 
fused all His expostulations—so that 
when the day of their disaster came, 
and they turned to the Lord, as they 
did not hear when He cried to them, so 
He would not hear when they cried to 
Him. | 


588 SERMON TO 

And thus, it is to be feared, is it with 
many, and very many, of our present 
reckless generation. He is calling to 
you directly by His.Spirit, when the 
law, written in your consciences, ad- 
monishes you of the right and of the 
wrong; and you are hardening your 
consciences against Him when, all 
heedless of the admonition, you put it 
utterly away from you. He is crying 
to you by the prophets and the right- 
eous men of old in that book which 


His Spirit hath dictated, and the words’ 


of which you have already learned to 
read—and it is your bounden duty to 
mind and to revere them; and you are 


just hardening yourselves in_ stout- | 


heartedness against Him, when that 
word, which has been compared to a 
hammer breaking the rock in pieces, is 
yet unable to break that impregnable 
resistance wherewith so many obstinate 
sinners can stand out against all the 
denunciations that are written therein. 
It is, indeed, most woeful to think of 
the stern and uncomplying metal of 
resistance which the soul and the con- 
science of man are capable of taking 
on. 
er and a more resolute sinner than 
before. Every act of transgression 
takes so much away from the delicacy 
and the tenderness of his conscience. 
The wickedness he at one time trem- 
bled to think of, he anon can commit 
and glory in. His moral sensibilities 
at length sink into utter decay. The 
preaching of the word cannot move 
him—the death of acquaintances on 
every side of him cannot shake him 
out of his determined rebellion—the 
tolling of the funeral bell sends no 
compunction into his steeled and in- 
flexible bosom—the warnings of Provi- 
dence do not affect him—and nothing 
will prevail upon him to feel or to con- 


sider till his own selfishness be touched the vengeance that are denounced there- 


upon ! 


by the agonies of his mortal disease, 
and the terrors of his own impending 
dissolution ;—and then, to crown the 
sad history of infatuated man, does it 
turn out, that as God cried unto him in 
the days of his youth, and he would 
not hear, so when he cries on his dying 
bed, I will not hear, saith the Lord of 
hosts. 

Let me bring this whole lesson more 


Every month finds him a hard- | 


THE YOUNG. [SERM 
specifically to bear upon you, by urging ~ 
upon you three leading particulars of 
the divine testimony, of which God is 
now making frequent.and open procla- 
mation in your hearing. but which if 
you do not hear, He will shut His ear 
and His tenderness against you when 
the day of your necessity arrives: and 
the first particular which we may gather 
from every page of His book, and also 
from the intimate consciousness—each 
in his own bosom, is that we have sinned 
against Him, and are now under right- 
ful sentence of condemnation. There is 
none righteous, no, not one—all have 
fallen short of God’s commandment and 
'God’s glory. There is none who under- 
_standeth, and none who seeketh after 
Him. .And cursed is every one who 
continueth not in all the words of the 
book of His law to dothem. These are 
the declarations of all being crimina! 
and all being accursed before God ;— 
and they are uttered not for the sole pur- 
| pose of terrifying you, but for the pur- 
pose of prevailing on you to flee to the 
place of escape and deliverance. It is 
not to torment you before the time that 
God tries to hight up the agonies of fear 
and of remorse in your bosom, but it is 
that you may be concerned how to find 
refuge from that threatened torment. 
He wants you to tremble at the thought 


| of hell, not to make you miserable even 


before the door of that awful place is 


‘shut upon you; but He desires to set ~ 


you trembling, in order that you may 
be led to flee from this coming wrath. 
and to betalce yourselves to the appointed 


| way of deliverance therefrom. But how 


many, alas! there be in our world who 
persist in profoundest lethargy under the 
terror and the threatening of all these 
denunciations. How many persist in 





their wickedness, and steel their unre- 
generated bosoms against the wrath and 


How many, I fear, even among 
/you, my young friends, who live as 
lightly and as unconcernedly as if there 


"were no judgment and no hell—you will 


not hear when we tell you of sin and of 
vengeance. Conscience may offer now 
and then the intimation that you are not 
in friendship with God, and not in a fit 
state for dying and entering into His 
presence ; but the lesson is thrown aside, 


XXVIII. ] SERMON TO 
and the guilt and the danger are forgot- 
ten, and among light-hearted compan- 
ions you lose all sight of the coming 
eternity, and thus you do what the chil- 
dren of Israel before did; when God 
eried unto them they did not hear, and 
you will not hear when by His Bibles 
and His ministers, and the whispers of 
His Holy Spirit in your heart, He tries 
to fix and solemnize-you by the thought, 
that in yourselves you are undone sin- 
ners, the blood of whose own souls will 
be required at your hands. And thus 
you may fare even as they did—you will 
at length be reduced to the helplessness 
of their sad misery, and then when death 
comes upon you, may you cry when it 
is too late. And so, as you will not 
hear God now when he crieth unto you, 
He may not hear you then, when you 
ery unto Him. 

But there is another particular of the 
divine testimony that I must sound 
forth in your heating—I have already 
said that there is a future day of wrath 
—but I now say that there is a present 
day of acceptance. 

I have already said that you are sin- 
ners—but I now say that there is a Sa- 
viour for sinners. I have already said 
that you are under the curse of a vio- 
lated law—but I now tell you of one 

who hath taken that curse upon Him- 
self, who hath redeemed us from it by 
becoming a curse for us, who hung upon 
the tree for your offences. and there 
bore the whole weight of His Father’s 
displeasure—drinking to the very dregs 
the cup of our expiation, and pouring 
forth His soul unto the death, that we 
may live through Him. This is the 
gospel of Jesus Christ, of which procla- 
mation is made every day from our 
Bibles, every week from our pulpits, 
every year from our solemn sacraments. 
God hath lifted up the cry of invitation 
unto all; and He now expostulates with 
us that we should return unto Him, and 
He bids us believe in Christ that we 
may be saved, and often does He tell 
us if we will only come unto Himself 
through the open door of Christ’s medi- 
atorship, He will forgive all and forget 
all. These are the cries of a Father 
after His wandering and disobedient 
children, for He does not want to lose 
them, but rather that they should turn 


THE YOUNG. 589 
unto Him and live. And yet, alas! 
how much are these cries of a Father's 
tenderness unheeded by a perverse and 
unthinking generation—what an insult- 
ing return does the Father of mercies 
meet from us, when all day long He 
stretches forth His hand to a rebellious 
and gainsaying people! Oh! it was 
a foul provocation to have broken His 
law ; but how far more bitter the proy- 
ocation is, when we turn a deaf ear 
to His*gospel, and turn our back on 
His offers of reconciliation ?—and this is 
done by all who lightly esteem Christ, 
by all who count the preaching of His 
cross to be foolishness, by all who, care- 
less about sin, are equally careless about 
the sacrifice that has been made for 
it. Do you hear of Christ, and hear of 
Him without emotion, and without any 
desire after Him? Do the tidings of 
salvation fail heavily and unconcernedly 
upon your ears? Is it all like the 
sound of an unknown voice, without any 
power to touch or to awaken you? 

| Then, indeed, you affront God in the 

| tenderest part, you dishonour His Son, 
you make Himself a liar by refusing 
His testimony respecting Him, you re- 
ject the offer of salvation that hath been 
brought to your door, you say—We 
shall persist in our sins, and we care 
not for the Saviour. The cry of gospel 
entreaty is lifted up in your hearing 
now, and you will not listen to it; and 
the cry for gospel mercy may arise from 
you then, when on the eve of bidding 
adieu to the world, you cast about for 
the peace and the interest of your eter- 
nity—because you can do no better, 
because you cannot help it. Oh! cast 
| not away your own souls; listen to the 
Saviour who now standeth without, and 
knocketh at the door of your hearts ; 
kiss Him while He is in the way. He 
is willing now to enter into friendship 
with you, and to manage your cause, 
and to take upon Himself the whole 
burden of your interest and reconcilia- 
tion with God; but He will not always 
strive—His wrath will at length begin 
to burn; and if you refuse him now, 
the day may soon overtake you when 
you will cry unto Him and He will not 
hear you. . 

But, lastly, God calleth unto all to 
forsake the evil of their ways and the 


590 SERMON TO 
evil of their thoughts. 
repent as well as to believe the gospel. 
He hath uttered this solemn denuncia- 
tion—that unless we repent we perish. 
He makes us to understand that in 
turning to Christ we turn from our in- 
iquities. He sounds this will and order 
of His imperatively in your hearing :— 
Break off your sins by righteousness.— 
Come out from among evil ways and evil 
acquaintances.—Burst asunder the en- 
tanglements and the enticeménts of 
vicious pleasure by which you are sur- 
rounded.—Be ye separate from sinners, 
and follow not a multitude to do evil. 
And to encourage you with the offers of 
strength and aid from above that you 
may be enabled to prosecute the work 
of repentance and to perfect it, He says, 
Turn unto me, and behold I will pour 
out my Spirit upon you. This is the 
cry that He now lifts in your hearing— 
and will you dare after this to continue 
in the bonds of companionship with the 
ungodly ? Will you choose the despis- 
ers of God and of goodness for your in- 
timates, and that merely because they 
live with you in the same street, or work 
with you under the same master? Will 
you thus expose your eternity at random 
to the evil influences of such acquaint- 
ances as you may happen to meet with 
in the world ? 

You are young, and you may per- 
haps be laying your account with many 
days on this side of death, and may 
think that it is time enough to be good 
—that it is time enough to think of 
heaven, and of preparation for that aw- 
ful and terrifying death which still lies 
at so remote a distance away from you. 
But I call upon you to feel the urgency 
of the text. Young as you are, God is 
lifting up a cry of expostulation and 
entreaty even unto you: Suffer little 
children to come unto me, says the Sa- 
viour—and is not this a cry of invita- 
tion to the least and youngest of you 
all? Children, obey your parents in 
the Lord, says one of His apostles— 
and is not this a cry of authority lifted 
up in your hearing? Your being young 
does not prevent God from crying unto 


He bids all to. 


THE YOUNG. [SERM. 
you; but if you will not listen—this, 
when you come to be old, may prevent 
Him from hearing when you cry unte 
Him. Oh! persist not, then, in this 
unconcern any longer. Open your 
hearts to the voice of Him that speak- 
eth from heaven, and who, while griey- 
ed because of your sins, is yet waiting 
to be gracious. Harden your hearts no — 
longer against Him, or they may at 
length become harder than the adamant. 
Think with yourselves, that if this 
evening I stand my ground against the 
cry which I have heard, then will I 
stand more firmly against another, and 
another, and another cry; and thus will 
your case be every day becoming 
worse, and your chance for heaven will 
every day become more desperate, and 
your contempt and carelessness about 
divine things will grow upon you from 
one day to another; and your whole 
life may be one continued resistance to 
the proclaimed grace of that God who 
is now plying you with messages of 
love, and entreating your return to the 
paths of peace and of pleasantness. 
Oh! hold out no longer, lest in return 
for His cry being unheard by you all 
your lives long, you will at length 
send forth a fearful and a piercing and 
an exceeding bitter cry when death 
stares you in the face, and the terrors 
of the coming hell draw near to your 
affrighted soul, and the cry be disre- 
garded, and the gate of mercy be shut, © 
and the Spirit have left you to the fruit © 
of your own ways, and an everlasting 
seal be set on that fountain which is 
now flowing out so freely, and to which 
you are now invited, that you may wash 
out your sins in the blood of the Lamb. 
Return unto God, and He will return 
unto you.—Seek Him while He is near. 
—Callupon Him while He is to be found 
—He will receive you graciously.—He 
will love you freely if you will only 
go to Him now, and put yourself under 
the protection of His Son Jesus Christ, 
and under the bidding of Him as the 
Master whom you have chosen, and 
whom alone you are determined to 
serve. 


FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT GLASGOW. 


591 


SERMON XXIX. 


Farewell Discourse at Glasgow.* 


“Tf I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If Ido not remember thee, 
_ let my tongue cleave tothe roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”— 


Psaums cxxxvii. 5, 6. 


Tue exquisite pathos and beauty of 
this sacred composition gives it a high 
place even in the records of poetry. It 
is, indeed, one of its most precious effu- 
sions; and apart altogether from that 
which constitutes its highest recom- 
mendation to a spiritual man, there are 
about it touches of imagery and feeling 
that call forth a responding homage 
from the native sensibilities of every 
heart. The captive despondency—the 
dear yet drooping recollection of that 
more distant home—the fond and lofty 
aspirings of a patriotism which the ruth- 
less hand of tyranny must only have 
tiveted the more, and never could ex- 
tinguish—these deeper agitations of the 
sou] are so mellowed into softness, and 
the pensive and the picturesque are so 
mingled together in these accompani- 
ments of the harp and the river, and the 
hanging willow upon its side,as to make 
this, even when regarded in the light of 
a Hebrew melody, the finest and most 
fascinating of them all. 

Yet they are not the breathings either 
of a natural or a poetic tenderness, but 
those of grace and of the Spirit, where- 
with at present we have immediately to 
do. This psalm, in fact, is mainly and | 
essentially the utterance of religion. It | 


ee 





phere of that ungainly and ungenial 
neighbourhood where they now breath 
ed, this grace and this godliness should 
go into utter dissipation. There was 
little danger that they should ever lose 
the regards and the recollections of 
patriotism. There was little danger 
that even to the hour of death the scenes 
of late ancestral glory. and of their own 
happy boyhood, should not always recur 
as far the dearest to their imagination. 
There was a powerful guarantee in the 
universal laws and sensations of human- 
ity, that when they looked back on the 
peace and gladness of younger days, 
every bosom should fetch its heavy sigh, 
and every eye should weep at the re- 
membrance of them. There was no fear 
lest any of them should become apos- 
tates from the truth and the tenderness 
of nature; but there was another, a 
more fatal apostasy, on the brink of 


| which these holy men of God felt that 


they were standing; and this psalm, we 
repeat, is the outpouring of souls firm in 
their purposes of religious integrity, yet 
fearful of falling away from it—eyeing 
with dismay the hazards of their exile 
from a priestly and a consecrated land, 
and summoning to their aid the high 
resolve, the solemn and appalling con- 


is the complaint of men now bereaved | juration—“‘If I forget thee, O Jeru- 
of its solemnities and its services, and | salem, if I forget the city of my God, 


hurried into a Pagan land, where the 

worship of Israel was derided. and the | 
God of Israel was unknown. They had | 
both the griefs and the fears of nature ; 
but the chief burden of their grief is, 
that torn from the companionships of 
piety, and left to the cruel mockery of 
profane and unfeeling barbarians, their 
spirits had lost that yond aliment by 
which all grace and all godliness are 
upholden; and the chief burden of their 
fear was, lest, in the withering atmos- 


* Preached at St. John’s, Glasgow, 
Sabbath in Noy. 1823. 


let my right hand forget her cunning ; 
and if I do not remember thee, let my 
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, 
if I prefer not Jerusalem above my 
chief joy.” 

And we mistake it, my brethren, if 
we think that to be translated intoa 
condition for feelings and purposes that 
are kindred to these, we must be visited 
with a kindred calamity—that upon us 
also an invasion and an overthrow and 
a captivity must come—that we must 
be wrested from our Christian homes, 


on the second | and carried far into savage or idolatrous 


592 


retreats, where Sabbaths and sacraments 
and churches are unknown. That book, 
which was written for our admonition, 
on whom the latter ends of the world 
have come, however remote its historical 
narratives may be from any experience 


of ours. is replete all over with passages 


of direct and most familiar application 
to our daily affairs; and more particu- 
larly of this passage may it be affirmed, 
that there elapseth not one day of our 
lives in which the disciple of Jesus is 
not exposed to a transition as wide and 
as violent as from the land of Israel to 
the land of Babylon—in which, with- 
out one mile of locomotion, he does not 
traverse a moral and a spiritual distance 
as great as that which separated the 
mourners of our text from their beloved 
Jernsalem—in which he does not step, 
as it were, from one region to another, 
in the first of which he stood as at the 
gate of heaven, and in the second is ex- 
posed to all the withering secularities of 
the world. 

The Christian who is much exer- 
cised in the. discernment of his own 
spirit, knows that there is in it a con- 
stant gravitation away :rom God; and 
that, were it not for an upward and as- 
piring tendency, which grace hath im- 
parted and grace alone can uphold, it 
would instantly lapse into earthliness. 
If he have intelligently marked the 
fluctuation that taketh place in his heart 
on the ever-shifting occasions of his his- 
tory—if he have contrasted aright the 
sacredness of his. family prayer, and in 
the ordinary managements of his fam- 
ily the utter oblivion of all sacredness— 
if he have kept a record of the elevation 
to which at times he hath been borne 
upwardly in church, and then how he 
flattened to a level with the dust when 
surrounded again with the urgencies of 
business—if he ever breathed of a hea- 
venly communion on the mount of ordi- 
nances, and felt how soon the compan- 
ionships of every-day life scattered it 
away—he will admit that in reference 
to the Jerusalem above he is one of an 
exned species—a stranger and sojourner 
in a distant land. Conscious how hab- 
itually it is that the things of sacred- 
ness slip away from his remembrance, 
his aspirations toward them will be fre- 
quent, and the heed that he gives to 


FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT GLASGOW. 


[ SERM. 


them will be earnest. There will be at 


all times a fearfulness upon his spirit 


because of its infirmity, and yet, like 
that of the captive Israelites, a solemn 
and a strenuous purpose against it It 
is indeed a kindred struggle, and there 
will be a kindred sympathy. He feels 
the text to be his own, and he uses it as 
a combative weapon against the bias of 
his earthly nature. “If I forget thee, 
O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget 
her cunning. If I do not remember 
thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of 
my mouth, if L prefer not Jerusalem 
above my chief joy.” 

We have not time for all the general- 
ities of doctrine and of remark which, 
under this text, we might most perti- 
nently expatiate upon, and therefore 
hasten to the task of stimulating your 
own consciences to a faithful application 
of it. You may remember, my friends, 
the occasions of your history when a 
glow came upon your spirits that felt 
like a glow of sacredness, and you must 
remember how speedily it all evanished 
on your very first exposure to the atmo- 
sphere of this world’s society. You may 
remember, when holding converse with 
some Christian author—with a venera- 
ble worthy, perhaps, of some former gen- 
eration—with one of those mighty dead 
who still speaketh in some precious me- 
morial that he hath left behind him of 
his own holy and heavenly contempla- 
tions—you may remember how he ex- 
ercised the charm that could abstract 
you for one little hour from the frivol- 
ties of life, and pour into your mind the 
glory of those great elements among 
which he himself expatiated. But when 
leaving the closet, you must remember 
the descent as well as the elevation, and 
with what facility it was that you could 
step down to creep and grovel as before 
on the platform of ordinary men. You 
may remember a similar transition even 
in the converse that you have held with 
a living instructor—how pleasant to 
your ear was the chime of the morning 
bells that summoned you to his pulpit 
ministrations—how you caught a frame 
of sacredness from your very presence 
in the house of God—and how the les- 
sons of piety came with a peculiar force 
upon your spirit, when, instead of being 
taken in by the eye from the pages of a 





xxx. ] 


written e-mposition, they took their di- 
rect conveyance into the bosom from 
the sympathies of a heart in unison with 
your own. 

And we, moreover, fear of many that 
they must remember how a Sabbath of 
lofty feelings. and when they seemed to 
breathe in the pure and elevated serene 
of an upper region, how such a’Sabbath 
has been followed up by a week of utter 
desecration—how, from the beginning to 
the end of it all their senses were steep- 
ed in worldliness—and that. throughout 
their six days, nothing was left to sig- 
nalize their history from that of others 
who make of the seventh a free and 
festive holiday. And that, if possible, 
I may have a still nearer appeal to 
your consciences, some of you may have 
the fresh remembrance of that which 
felt like the unction of heaven upon 
your souls in the sacrament that has 
just gone by. and yet, in the short and 
rapid interval between, have met enough 
to convince you. that so soon as loosened 
from the altitude to which it had gotten. 
the soul sinks and gravitates again to 
the dust of its own kindred earthliness. 
These are but a few instances out of the 
many. They are only the signs and 
the specimens of a general law that 
operates at all times and throughout the 
whole extent of our degraded nature. 
They are the sad evidences of our ban- 
ishment from heaven, of our disruption 
from God’s unfallen family. They prove 
that there is an element within—an ele- 
ment of repugnance and of recoil from 
godliness—an accursed enmity in our 
spirits to the things of faith—a headlong 
tendency that weighs us down to that 
world of sense and of sight. among 
whose carnal delights and comfortable 
dwellings we could live forever, and 
gladly consent to an eternai separation 
from all the glories of the upper Para- 
dise. It is this, my brethren, which 
constitutes one and ail of us exiles from 
the city of the living God. It is a sense 
of this that ministers to every aspirant 

the humbiine conviction of his woeful 
distance and deficiency therefrom. It 
is because of this that he mourns and 
is in heaviness; while in reference to 
the great majority, we fear, that though 
all the alternations which we have now 
tet forth be fully experienced, no prac- 
7d 


FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT GLASGOW. 


593 


tical regret is experienced along with it 


Any religion they have is caught in 
glimpses or in passing emotions; it comes 
round at the stated period, and makes 
way for other things which pass in busy 
succession through the circuits of their 
history; it has its insignificant corner 
in the whole system of their affairs. 
Meanwhile, life bustles onwards to its 
close; and after a procession of many feel- 
ings and many fugitive regards among 
which religion had its place with other 
things, are there many who pass with 
spirits wholly unrenewed into the pres- 
ence of God, with persons wholly un- 
sanctified to the awards of the judg: 
ment-seat. 

You are not to imagine that religion 
is like to one term of the series, to one 
article in the great inventory of human 
life; nor, on the principle that there is 
a time and a season for everything, are 
you to-exclude religion from its rightful 
ascendency over all the departments of 
human experience. You are not to 
view it as a chapter in your history, 
but rather as that which gives a quality 
and a style to the whole composition. 
You are not to confine it within the 
dimensions of a part. but to diffuse it as 
you would a colouring substance that 
leavens and impregnates the whole. It 
is very true that household engagements 
must be gone through. It is very true 
that business in all its manifold details 
must be attended to. It is very true 
that the cares of health and of daily 
bread and of a provision for your fami- 
lies are ever soliciting the regards of 
your spirit, and ever multiplymg your 
avocations and anxieties. I freely con- 
cede that thus the life of man must be 
broken down into countless and_ ever- 
changing varieties; but I contend, that 
in religion there is an amalgamating 
power by.which it closes and coalesces 
therewith, and stamps a reigning char- 
acter upon them all—that an individual 
might peruse and ponder and give him- 
self to busy penmanship for hours in 
his counting-house—that he might bus- 
tle his way through the activities and 
negotiations of a market—that he might 
relax his wearied faculties in the bosom 
of the domestic circle, and there listen 
with delighted ear to the prattle of in- 
fancy—that he might indulge in all the 


594 7 


gayeties of a benevolent heart, whether 
at home or in society—in a word, that 
he might pass from one scene and em- 
ployment to another, and yet carry 
through them all the decided aspect 
and temper of a Christian. He might 
no more resign, by any of these transi- 
tions, the complexion of a spiritual man 
than the complexion of his face ; all the 
while might this characteristic sit as 
‘visibly upon him as any other of the 
characteristics which nature or habit 
hath bestowed. Whatever a man’s en- 
gagements, or however they may shift 
and fluctuate from one to another, there 
still cleaves to him his sanguine, or his 
phlegmatic, or his melancholy, or, in 
short, his constitutional temperament, 
whatever it may be. And so to the 
true disciple there should cleave upon 
all occasions his Christian temperament. 
The anointing that hath given it to him 
is an anointing that remaineth. It 
manifesteth itself not in some things 
only, but in all; for such is the high 
demand of the religion that you profess, 
to do all things to the glory of God, to 
do all things in the name of Jesus. 
There are many hearts to which the 
word of God reaches no further than 
the surface, and like the seed which fell 
by the way-side, it is instantly taken 
away ; and there are many more where 
it enters a little way within the sur- 
face, and there springeth up a rapid 
vegetation of sensibilities, and purposes, 
and vows, which having no root, like 
the seed that feel upon rocky ground, 
all sicken and decay under the wither- 
ing exposures of this world. It is 
against the deceitfulness of such emo- 
tions as these that [ would like to guard 
you—it is the evanescent pathos as dis- 
joined from the operation and the hab- 
itual power that is so very apt to min- 
ister to your bosoms a most treacherous 
complacency—it is lest the quick and 
transitory feeling should pass in your 


during principle, that I am jealous over 
you, and I trust with a godly jealousy. 
[ would have you warned, my brethren, 
that Christianity may be so rooted as 
to yield the love and delicate efflores- 
cence which the first rude blast will 
destroy ; and not be so rooted as to be- 
come the object of a steadfast remem- 


FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT GLASGOW, 


[SERM. 


| brance and steadfast regard, and so as 
‘that the blossoms of promise may be 
succeeded by the fruits of righteous- 
ness., It is because of the flower with- 
‘out the fruit, that a morning of fair pro- 
fession so often settles down into a 
‘manhood or an old age of inveterate 
worldliness—and that after a spring 
green with verdure and opening foliage, 
so many might apply the true and the 
tremendous saying, that the harvest is 
past, and the summer is ended, and we 
are not saved. You feel now—and I 
want to counteract the tide of your 
/emotions by lifting up before your eyes 
the rough fruit of experience, and. pro- 
claiming how possible it is that you 
may forget afterwards. The delusions 
of our modern world are as hurtful and 
as hazardous to encounter as were the 
idolatries of the land of Babylon. Be 
forewarned and forearmed like the Is- 
raelites of my text—and be it your 
holy determination, as it was theirs, 
that the things of heaven shall never 
be forgotten. “If I forget thee, O 
Jerusalem, if I forget Mount Zion, and 
the city of the living God, let my right 
hand forget her cunning. Let my 
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, 
if [ remember not Jerusalem above my 
chief joy.” 

I feel it most oppressively unpleasant 
to allude, however distantly, to myself 
—and on the moment of touching upon 
the borders of egotism, there spring 
up a thousand delicacies which are 
most difficult to manage, and which one 
is utterly at a loss how to dispose of. 
They have really cost me some thought; 
but [ have at length resolved that when 
holding converse with fellow-sinners on 





;the high matters of eternity, any feel- 


ing of the sort ought to be suspended— 
that it is my duty on the present occa- 
sion to school down the repugnance 
altogether ; and when anything has to 


your | be spoken which substantially affects 
imaginations for the sturdiness of en- | 


so deep and mighty a concern as the 
well-being of your souls,no scruple and 





no ceremony should be permitted to 
stand in its way. It is quite palpable 
then to you all, so indulgently have I 
been dealt with by my hearers, that 
from first to last I have had a goodly 
attendance; and it is a question which 
concerns not me more than it does 


XXIX. ] 


yourselves—what the peculiar magnet- 
ism is which can possibly account for 
it? IT have had my own painful mis- 
givings upon this subject—and more 
especially when I read that it is possi- 
ble for man by his own wisdom and his 
own words to make Christ of none 
effect—that the treasure of saving truth 
is deposited in earthen vessels, and 
therefore many may be drawn to gaze 
on the painted devices, the curious sin- 
gularities of the vessel, without seeking 
or caring for any spiritual treasure— 
that there may be a cadence in the 
song which pleaseth the ear, but which 
after the performance is over dieth away 
into oblivion, and leaveth not an im- 
pression of power or of permanency 
upon the heart—that the holy apostles 
preached not themselves but Christ 
Jesus the Lord, and that in His doc- 
trine there 1s a simplicity, every devi- 
ation from which might perhaps be 
chargeable on the waywardness of the 
preacher’s own imagination. These 
are the thoughts which at times have 
involved me ina certain ambiguity that 
is hard to be resotved—and for which, 
after all, the best touch-stone’ is the 
practical state of your own souls, the 
character of your present habits, the 
course of your future history. 

It is thus that I would leave it; and 
thus only can it be made palpable to 
the eye of mortal, whether a genuine 
unction from on high hath descended 
upon you—whether the interest you 
have heretofore taken in the ministra- 
tions of this pulpit be altogether of 
earthly origin—or whether, indeed, it be 
heaven-born—a fire from the sanctuary 
above, or a spark of man’s kindling—a 
meteoric glare that passeth away, or 
that light of Scripture and of the spirit 
which shineth more and more along the 
track of your worldly pilgrimage, and 
will at length usher you into the un- 
clouded glories of eternity. Had every 
mournful feeling of the captives of 
Babylon been analyzed, it would have 
‘been found of some that they wept from 
patriotism, and of others that they wept 
from piety. The expression was the 
same in all—yet few of them, we have 
reason to believe, were Zion’s mourn- 
-ers—and thus of the delight that may 
be felt throughout the continuance of 


FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT GLASGOW. 


595 


gospel services, and the disappointment 
at their close. There might be mere 
humanity, and nothing more, in all our 
tenderness—the regret which nature 
feels at the breaking up of an earthly 
fellowship—the shock that is ever ex- 
perienced by friendly hearts when their 
wonted relation is dissolved. And cruel 
as it may seem thus to probe and to an- 
atomize among these sensibilities that 
I myself have wounded—it is of truly. 
religious importance to know, that in 
the workings of our mysterious nature, 
there may, on an occasion like the pres- 
ent, be a sorrow that hath nought of 
the spirit from above, there may be a 
grief which hath naught of godliness. 
Be aware, then, my brethren, of those 
manifold treacheries to which the heart 
is able, and seek for the plain and the 
practical evidences within you that you 
have indeed heard to the salvation of 
your souls. There is not one Christian- 
ity for the philosopher, and another for 
the peasant—there is not one spiritual 
repast served up for the cultivated and 
the classic few, and another for the 
homely and unlettered multitude. The 
garnishing may be different, and per- 
haps this is not wrong; but be assured. 
that whether it is to the poor that the 
gospel is preached, or to the sons and 
daughters of refinement, the substance 
of every right and wholesome minis- 
tration is the same. And to ascertain 
whether you have tasted of the bread 
of life—whether you have imbibed the 
true essence of spiritual nourishment—I 
look not to the gathering host, and the 
eager competition, and the arrested audi- 
ence, or to the glow and the sentiment 
and the tragic sensibility that passes 
speedily away. These will subside, and 
only what is sterling will remain; anda 
few little months will throw light upon 
the question, whether you have only 
heard with the hearing of the ear, or the 
word of God hath found its secure and 
abiding lodgment within you? And 
even now, there’may be a something 
which conscience can discern—a recol- 
lection of self, and of the changes which 
self hath experienced—that might give 
the token if not the assurance of good 
unto the soul. Have you felt, or do you 
now feel, an unwonted sense upon your 
spirit of its now manifest ungodliness ? 


596 


‘Hath your blindness to this been dissi- 
ated ‘—and now, adrift from the old 
seecurity of nature, do you see what an 
outcast you are from holiness and heav- 
en? Hath the unsettled controversy 
‘between you and God been a burden to 
your soul, and as it roamed in quest of 
deliverance, did the tidings fall with 
welcome upon your ear, that unto you 
a Saviour has been born? Can you lis- 
ten without antipathy to that gospel 
message which tells of the peace'speak- 
ang blood and the sanctifying Spirit, 
and can you now rest in the one—do 
‘you now pray for the other? Is the 
truth that Christ died for your sins, ac- 
cording to the Scriptures—is this the 
truth that hath the chiefest prominency 
in your regards, and the most habitual 
‘place in your remembrance? Is His 
name like ointment poured forth; and 
when you think of His work, even a 
‘propitiation for sin, do you feel it to be 
‘precious ? 

How stand you affected now in refer- 
ence to the Bible 2—doth that phraseol- 
ogy which was wont to offend, now 
come with a charm and a power upon 
‘your renovated taste? and do you now 
feel that dearer to your heart than all 
the splendours of human eloquence are 
the impressive simplicities of the gospel? 
In Scripture, even though alone, can 
you find the food that regales and satis- 
fies? Do its memorable passages that 
often in other days sounded listlessly 
‘am your hearing—do they now come 
‘home with a sense that was before un- 
felt of their truth and importance ; and 
as you travel through that record of 
heaven’s embassies to the world, do you 
now gaze on beauties hitherto unre- 
vealed, and greatly delight yourselves 
with treasures of wisdom that were at 
one time unnoticed and unknown? 
Have you now given up the festivities 
of riot and profaneness for the fellow- 
ships of piety—the thirst of this world’s 
gain for the hope cf the next world’s 
glory—the pleasures of sin which are 
but for a season for the fruits of that 
‘righteousness which endureth forever ? 
—these are the elements which enter 
into the Christianity of cottages, and if 
‘they be not the very elements which 
are fixed and realized upon yourselves, 
then you have no Christianity. These 


“FAREWELL ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. 


~ 


[SERM. 


are the only legitimate triumphs of the 
pulpit; and apart from these. eloquence 
and argument and learning are but 
profanation. Oh, how paltry they will 
appear amid the solemn realities of the 
judgment-seat! aad what a tremendous 
reckoning of guilt should it indeed be 
found that between a vaporing exhibi- 
tion upon the one side, and an ecstasy 
of admiration upon the other, religion 
as a business—religion, in sober earnest 
and as a practical object, has been en- 
tirely disregarded ! 

I have already stated. that all those 
delicacies which stood in the way of 
any utterance that is important to be 
made, should give place for the time at 
least, and until that utterance is past. 
And on this principle I now throw aside 
for one moment a ceremonial that might 
else have obstructed the declaration 
which I now hasten to make, and which 
I deem to be even of Christian impor- 
tance that you should hear. The pulpit 
ministrations under which many of you 
have now sat for upwards of eight 
years, have I trust been held by most. 
of you as the ministrations of a man in 
earnest—that you at least recognized in 
them an expression and perhaps an hon- 
est sense of the paramount worth of the 
soul; and whatever their manifold im- 
perfections may have been, (and sure I 
am that they are without reckoning,) 
they have often borne utterance in your 
hearing to the supremacy of eternal 
things when put by the side of this 
world’s gayest and even most glorious 
fascinations. Now to many an unprac- 
tised eye the movement that I now 
make might seem ina most painful and 
puzzling incongruity with all this; a 
transition from the pulpit to the academ- 
ic chair might be pronounced buta dere- 
liction of sacredness for science—of re- 
ligion and its holy services for the pom 
and the pride and the heathenism of 
philosophy. When such a charge is 
preferred in the spirit of calumny, it is 
not worthy of a moment’s attention ; 
but when it cometh as the complaint 
of humble but wounded piety—when 
worth and charity and Christian ten- 
derness have been known to weep over 
it as a sore desecration—when a shock 
has been given thereby to faithful and 
to feeling souls, and something. like a 


XXIX.] 


scandal is apprehended to that cause 
which is dearest to their bosoms from 
the desertion of one whom they had 
ranked among the most zealous of its 
advocates—when they are sensibilities 
like these with which we have to deal— 
the sorrows of honest affection and of- 
fended principle—it were barbarous in- 
deed not to venerate the sanctity of such 
a grief, or to withhold any avowal that 
might satisfy and soothe it. 

There is no time, nor do I think this 
a place for argument; and all therefore 
which I can at present do to reassure 
the conviction that has been in some de- 
gree unsettled is to make averment in 
your hearing—and I do it as in the 
presence of God, and from the depths of 
my Own conscious sincerity, that on re- 
tirmmg from the direct business of the 
Church, I still regard that Church as 
the most glorious instrument for the 
moral and spiritual regeneration of our 
land—that with this our Zion are linked 
all my fondest associations, whether of 
patriotism or of piety—that as holy men 
of old took pleasure in the stones of 
Jerusalem, and favoured the very dust 
thereof, so dear to my recollection is 
every related thing which calls to mind 
the business of congregations and par- 
ishes, that,-even apart from the high 
thought of each solemn assembly being 
an assembly of immortals there is naught 
on earth which has such an impress of 
moral loveliness to my eye as its groups 
of decent and devout worshippers. and 
naught that falls with sweeter cadence 
upon my ear than the voice of their melt- 
ing psalmody. But this is the mere 
poetry of religion. and these but the good 
and the graceful accompaniments that 
attend the exhibition of it in time. The 
pith and sterling of its excellence lies in 
its bearing upon eternity; the elements 
wherewith it is mainly conversant are 
the undying interests of the soul, the sin 
by which it is tainted, the Saviour by 
whom it is restored, the hell to which by 
nature it is so fast hastening, the heaven 
for which by grace it is invested with 
all the meet and necessary endowments. 
These are the dread and the solemn re- 
alities wherewith a minister of the ever- 
lasting gospel has to do, and when put 
by the side of these all the glories of 
human science vanish into the frivolities 


FAREWELL ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. 


597 


of childhood. This is true Christian 
arithmetic. In all the calculations of 
usefulness this is the principle that 
should never be overlooked-—nor, with 
humility be it spoken, do I think that I 
have been left to overlook or to err in 
the application of it. From one-of the’ 
thousand streams in our Establishment 
—a deep and a copious one, it must be 
admitted, but still a stream—a way hath 
been opened up to one of its emanating 
fountain-heads. From the vocation of 
labouring as one of the many teachers 
or prophets in our Church, I now enter 
upon the vocation of labouring in a 
school of the prophets. From the busi- 
ness of directly working the machine, I 
have been recalled to the business of a 
guidance and a guardianship over its 
elementary principles—or, in a manner, 
of feeding and regulating the fire that 
actuates its movements. From the deep 
exhaustion—not incurred at the homes 
walk of my parochial managements, for 
at all times was there a charm anda 
tranquillity in these—but from the deep 
exhaustion of hurry and fatigue and 
manifold distractions from without, have 
my footsteps been lured into a most con- 
genial resting-place, among whose acade- 
mic bowers Rutherford and Halyburton 
spent the evening of their days, and 
amid whose venerable ruins their bodies 
now sleep until the resurrection of the 
just. Should those high and heavenly 
themes on which they expatiated through 
life. and which shed a glory over their 
death-beds, ever cease to be dear unto 
my bosom—should the glare of this 
world’s philosophy ever seduce me from 
the wisdom and simplicity of the faith— 
should Jesus Christ and Him crucified 
not be the end of all my labours in ex- 
pounding the law of righteousness— 
then let the fearful judgments of heaven 
blight and overcast the faculties that I 
thus have prostituted. If I forget thee, 
O Jerusalem, if I forget thee, O thou 
Church and city of my God, let my right 
hand forget her cunning. If I do not 
remember thee, let my tongue cleave to 
the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not 
Jerusalem above my chief joy. 

I have spoken to you, my brethren, 
in much feebleness, and in the present 
state of my feelings have been wholly 
unable to do justice to this day’s argu 


593 


ment. 


FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT GLASGOW. 


[SERM 


There are topics on which I dare | stretches in golden clouds above it, 


hardly so much as enter, and on which, | will be the thought of all the worth, 
perhaps instead of adventuring any ut- | and the tenderness and the noble gene- 


terance in this place, it were more safe 
to restrain the struggling feelings. and 
consign them all back to those silent de- 
positories of the heart where gratitude 
or good will to you all shall ever be in- 
delibly engraven. 

Yet let me hurry over this dangerous 
course, or at least attempt how much I 
can overtake of it in a few moments of 
rapid articulation. I will never forget 
that it is your princely beneficence 
which has carried me forward in the 
enterprise of covering the parish with 
those institutions both of scholarship 
and of piety that have done most to 
grace and to dignify the people of our be- 
Joved land. I will never forget the 
labours of that devoted band to whose 
union and whose perseverance I still 
look for even greater services than they 
have ever yet rendered in the cause 
of Christian philanthropy. I never 
will forget the unexcepted welcome and 
kindness of my _ parochial families 
among whom the cause that to the su- 
perficial eye looks unpopular and austere, 
hath now found its conclusive estab- 
lishment. I never will forget the in- 
dulgence and the friendly regards of 
this congregation; and I beg to assure 
each and all of them that if a cold and 
ungenial apathy. whether of look or of 
manner, was all the return they ever 
could obtain for their demonstrations of 
Christian affection towards myself, it 
was not because I had not the convic- 
tion of that manifold good will which 
was on every side of me. but that 
moving in a wide and busy sphere. and 
hurried in the course of a few minutes 
from one act of intercourse to another 
with more than a thousand of my fel- 
lows my jaded and overborne feelings 
could not keep pace with it. There 
are hundreds, and hundreds more, 
whom in person I could not overtake 
but whom, in, the hours of cool and 
leisurely reflection, I shall know how 
to appreciate. And when I gaze on 
that quarter—the richest to me of alli 
the wide horizon in the treasures of 
cordiality and grateful remembrance— 
then sweeter than to the eye are those 
tints of loveliness which the western sun 


rosity that are there. Oh! .I never 
can forget the city of so many Chris- 
tian and kind-hearted men. I never 
will forget the countenance I have 
gotten from its upright and patriotic 
citizens. 
Let me entreat as one parting me- 
morial, that you will treasure up the 
summary of my own deeply felt ex- 
perience. Martin Luther hath pro- 
nounced it to be the article of a stand- 
ing or a falling Church, even that of 
justification by faith and the right- 
eousness of Christ, or that the Church 
will stand which keeps to Christ. and 
that the Church will fall by which he 
is forgotten. The same truth would I 
record in the hearing of you all—not 
in the shape of a mere catechetical 
dogma—not as one of the catechetical 
orthodox doctrines—not as an assump- 
tion laid upon the consciences of men 
by the hand of human intolerance— 
not, in one word. with any of these 
accompaniments which serve to revolt 
many a generous spirit, and to invest 
this precious, this venerable truth, with 
the air of a severe and scholastic con- 
troversy. I should like it to drop as 
balm on every weary and agitated 
spirit, and to assure him that if in time 
past he hath laboured to establish a 
righteousness of his own, and that still 
his conscience warns him that he is as 
far both from rest and from spiritual 
affection as before, then let him wrap 
himself round in the garment of that 
ready-made righteousness which Christ 
hath brought in. and all will be light 
and love and liberty. This indeed is 
the power of God and the wisdom of 
God to salvation. This has a regen- 
erating charm, not merely to tranquil- 
lize the sinner’s fears but to turn him into 
the ways of new obedience. The great 
apostle was determined to know nothing 
else among his people but Jesus Christ, 
and Him crucified; and this, not to 
darken the ample field of revelation, 
and leave nothing to the eye of the 
beholder but one naked and solitary 
apex, but to place him on a summit 
whence he may descry the whole rich- | 
ness and variety of the prospect that is 


. 


\ 
XXX. ] FURY NOT IN GOD. 599 


spread out before him. Let me entreat | beseeching tenderness of God, and his 
your frequent. your earnest perusal, ac- | free overtures of reconciliation to all,— 
companied with prayer, of the fifth} where these are found to mingle to- 
chapter of St. Paul’s Second Epistle to | gether, not, it is true, according to the 
the Corinthians, where the hope of im-| forms of an artificial system, but in the 
mortality and the gift of the Spirit,| very order of God’s own Spirit. Oh! 
and the walk of faith, and the accep-| to learn to suspend the whole on this 
tance of the life that*bears throughout | master proposition, that He hath made 
all its history a reference to the judg-| Christ to be sin for us, who knew no 
ment-seat, and the principle of Christian | sin, that we might be made the right- 
obedience, and the mighty change im- | eousness of God in Him! 

plied in Christian regeneration, and the 


: 


SERMON XXX. 


Fury Not,in God.* 


‘Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go 
through them, I would burn them together. Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may 
make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.” —Isatau vii. 3—5. 


Tuere are three distinct lessons in | But how can this be? is not fury one 
this text. The first, that fury is not in | manifestation of His essential attri- 
God: the second, that He does not! butes? do we not repeatedly read of 
want to glorify Himself by the death | His fury—of Jerusalem being full of 
of sinners—* Who would set the thorns | the fury of the Lord—of God casting 

nd briers against me in battle?” the | the fury of His wrath upon the worid 
shire the invitation—‘ Take hold of |—of Him rendering His anger upon 
my strength, that you may make peace | His enemies with fury—of him accom- 
with me; and you shall make peace | plishing His fury upon Zion—of Him 
with me.” causing His fury to rest on the bloody 
and devoted city? We are not there- 
fore to think that fury is banished 
altogether from God’s administration. 
There are times’ and occasions when 
this fury is discharged upon the objects 
of it; and there must be other times 





I. First, then, Fury is not in God. 


* A few years ago, Dr. Chalmers looked over, and 
carefully assorted and classified those of his unpub- 
lished pulpit’ preparations which were in short hand, a 
large mass of which is still existing. Out of these he 


selected a few which he extended into long hand, four | and other occasions when there is no 
of which, viz., Sermons xx., xxi., Xxii., xxviii., have in 


the present volume been presented to the reader. The fury in Him. Now, what is the occa- 
sermon which follows was one of these, but as it was | 77° ; : i oe 
more than simply re-written, as it was remoulded in s10n upon which He disclaims all fury 
the transcription, ane vera - Chalmers’ most fa-|in our text? He is mviting men to 
vourite sermon in later years, I have thought it right to oe : : : iat, 

place it as belonging to the period which sticceeded the reconciliation } He is calling upon them 
Glasgow ministry. It was written originally in two | to make peace ; and He is assuring 
parts, and preached at. Kilmany on October 2, and Oc- : | a 1 Te: eats lc 
tober 9, 1814. Even then ate than an ordinary value | them, that if they will only take hold 
appears to have been attached to it by its author, as he ie 10" r : 
repeated the delivery of both parts at Kilmany on July of His strength, they shall make peace 
2, 1815, the last Sabbath but one before leaving that | with Him. In the preceding verses 
parish. He was much interested himself in discover- | - Ne 7 a : 

ing it and re-employing it many years after he left Glas- He speaks of a Vv ineyard ; and in the 
gow—after an interval, as he himself caloulated,, of act of inviting people to lay hold of 
about twenty years. ow very frequently he used it : ou.g- State ye 
after its recovery, all who of late years have had fre- His strength, He 1s im fact Inviting 
quent opportunities of hearing him preach, will re-| those who are without the limits of the 
member. He chose it as the sermon to be delivered, ; : = : 

when on a very memorable Sabbath he preached to a vineyard to enter in. KE ury will be 
large assemblage in the lawn before Banchory House ; 1 ae 
on the 10th September, 1843; and also when, to a discharged on those who reject the in 
smaller audience, but in a locality which deeply inter- | vitation. But we cannot say that there 
ested him, he preached in the Free Church by St. Mary’s | - . . 
Loch, in April, 1846. is any exercise of fury in God at the 


600 


time of giving the invitation. There is 
the most visible and direct contrary. 
There is a longing desire after you. 
There is a wish to save you from that 
day in which the fury of a rejected Sa- 
viour will be spread abroad over all 
who have despised Him. The tone of 
mvitation 1s not a tone of anger—it is 
a tone of tenderness. The look which 
accompanies the invitation is not a look 
of wrath—it is a look of affection. 
There may be a time, there may be an 
occasion when the fury of God will be 
put forth on the men who have held out 
against Him, and turned them away in 
infidelity and contempt from His be- 
seeching voice ; but at the time that He 
is liftmge this voice—at the time that 
He is sending messengers over the face 
of the earth to circulate it among the 
habitations of men—at the time parti- 
cularly among ourselves, when in our 
own place and our own day Bibles are 
within the reach of every family, and 
ministers in every pulpit are sound- 
ing forth the overtures of the gospel 
throughout the land—surely at such a 
time and upon such an occasion, it may 
well be said of God to all who are now 
seeking His face and favour, that there 
is no fury in Him. 

It is just as in the parable of the 
marriage feast: many rejected the invi- 
tation which the king gave to it—for 
which he was wroth with them, and 
sent forth his armies and destroyed 
them, and burned up their city. On 
that occasion there was fury in the 
king, and on the like occasion will 
there be fury in God. But well can 
He say at the time when He is now 
giving the invitation—there is no fury 
inme. There is kindness—a desire for 
peace and friendship—a longing earn- 
estness to make up the quarrel which 
now subsists between the Lawgiver in| 
heaven, and His yet impenitent and 
unreconciled creatures. 

This very process was all gone! 
through at and before the destruction 
of Jerusalem. It rejected the warn- 
ings and invitations of the Saviour, and | 
at length experienced His fury. But 
there was no fury at the time of His 
giving the invitations. The tone of 
our Saviour’s voice when He uttered— 





FURY NOT IN GOD. 





“Q Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” was not 


_[SERM 
the tone of a vindictive and irritated 
fury. There was compassion in it—a 
warning and pleading earnestness that 
they would mind the things which be- 
long to their peace; and at that time 
when He would willingly have gathered 
them as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings—then may it well be 
said that there was no fury in the Son 
of God, no fury in God. 

Let us make the application to our- 
selves in the present day. On the last 
day there will be a tremendous dis- 
charge of fury. That wrath which sin- 
ners are now doing so much to treasure 
up will all be poured forth on them. 
The season of God’s mercy will then 
have come to an end; and after the 
sound of the last trumpet, there will 
never more be heard the sounding call 
of reconciliation. Oh, my brethren, 
that God who is grieved and who is 
angry with sinners every day, will i 
the last day pour it all forth in one 
mighty torrent on the heads of the im- 
penitent. It is now gathering and ac- 
cumulating in a store-house of ven- 
geance; and at the awful point in the 
successive history of nature and provi- 
dence, when time shall be no more, will 
the door of this store-house be opened, 
that the fury of the Lord may break 
loose upon the guilty, and accomplish 
upon them the weight and the terror 
of all his threatenings. 7 

You misunderstand the text, then, my 
brethren. if you infer from it that fury 
has no place in the history or methods 
of God’s administration. It has its 
time and its occasion—and the very 
greatest display of it is yet to come, 
when the earth shall be burned up, and 
the heavens shall be dissoived, and the 
elements shall melt with fervent heat, 
and the Lord Jesus shall be revealed 
from heaven with His mighty angels, in 
flaming fire, taking vengeance on those 
who know not God, and obey not the 
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; and 
they shall be punished with everlasting 
destruction from the presence of the 
Lord, and from the glory of His power. 
It makes one shudder seriously to think 
that there may be some here present 
whom this devouring torrent of wrath 
shall sweep away; some here present 
who will be drawn into the whirl of 


destruction. and forced to take their de- 
scending way through the mouth of that 
pit where the worm dieth not. and the 
fire is not quenched ; some here present 
who so far from experiencing in their 
own persons that there is no fury in 
God will find that throughout the dreary 
extent of one hopeless and endless and 
unmitigated eternity, it is the only attri- 
bute of His they have to do with. But 
hear me, hear me ere you have taken 
your bed in hell; hear me, ere that 
prison door be shut upon you which is 
never never again to be opened! hear 
me, hear me ere the great day of the 
revelation of God’s wrath comes round 
and there shall be a total breaking up 
of that system of things which. looks at 
present so stable and so unalterable! 
On that awful day I might not be able 
to take up the text and say—that there 
is no fury in God. But, oh! hear me 
for your lives hear me-—on this day I 
can say it. From the place where [ 
now stand I can throw abroad amongst 
you the wide announcement—that there 
is no fury in God; and there is not one 
of you into whose heart this announce- 
ment may not enter, and welcome will 
you be to strike with your beseeching 
God a league of peace and of friendship 
that shall never be broken ‘asunder. 
Surely when I am busy at my dele- 
gated employment of holding out the 
language of entreaty, and of sounding 
in your ears the tidings of gladness, and 
of inviting you to enter into the vine- 
yard of God—surely at the time when 
the messenger of the gospel is thus exe- 
cuting the commission wherewith he is 
charged and warranted, he may well 
say—that there is no fury in God. 
Surely at the time when the Son of God 
is inviting you to kiss Him and to enter 
into reconciliation, there is neither the 
feeling nor the exercise of fury. It is 
only if you refuse, and if you persist in 
refusing, and if you suffer all these calls 
and entreaties to be lost upon you—it is 
only then that God will execute His 
fury, and put forth the power of His 
anger. And therefore He says to us, 
“ Kiss the‘Son, lest He be angry, and ye 
perish from the way, when His wrath 
is kindled but a little.” Such, then, is 
the interesting point of time at which 
you stand. There is no fury in God at 
76 


FURY NOT IN 


4OD. 601 
the very time that He is inviting you to 
flee from it. He is sending forth no 
blasting influence upon the fig-tree even 
though hitherto it had borne no fruit, 
and been a mere cumberer of the ground, 
when He says. we shall let it alone for 
another year. and dig it, and dress it. 
and if it bear fruit, well; and if not. 
then let it be afterwards cut down. Now 
my brethren you are all in the situation 
of this fig-tree ; you are for the present 
let alone ; God has purposes of kindness 
towards every one of you; and as one 
of His ministers I can now say to you 
all—that there is no fury in Him. Now 
when the spiritual husbandman is try- 
ing to soften your hearts he is warranted 
to make a full use of the argument of 
my text—that there is no fury in God. 
Now that the ambassador of Christ is 
plying you with the offers of grace and 
of strength to renew and to make you 
fruitful, he is surely charged with matter 
of far different import from wrath and 
threatening and vengeance: Oh! let 
not all this spiritual husbandry turn out 
to be unavailing; let not the offer be 
made now, and no fruit appear after- 
wards; let not yours be the fate of the 
barren and unfruitful fig-tree. The day 
of the fury of the Lord is approaching. 
The burning up of this earth and the 
passing away of these heavens is an 
event in the history of God’s adminis- 
tration to which we are continually 
drawing nearer; and on that day when 
the whole of universal nature shall be 
turned into a heap of ruims, and we 
shall see the gleam of a mighty confla- 
gration, and shall hear the noise of the 
frame-work of creation rending into 
fragments, and a cry shall be raised 
from a despairing multitude out of the 
men of all generations, who have just 
awoke from their resting-places—and 
amid all the bustle and consternation 
that is going on below, such a sight 
shall be witnessed from the canopy of 
heaven as will spread silence over the 
face of the world, and fix and solemnize 
every individual of its incumbent popu- 
lation. Oh, my brethren, let us not 
think that on that day when the Judge 
is to appear charged with the mighty 
object of vindicating before men and 
angels the truth and the majesty of God 
—that the fury of God-will not then 


602 


appear in bright and burning manifes- 
tation. But what I have to tell you on 
this day, is, that fury is not in God— 
that now is the time of those things 
which belong to the peace of our eter- 
nity; and that if you will only hear on 
this the day of your merciful visitation, 
you will be borne off in safety from all 
those horrors of dissolving nature, and 
amid the wild war and frenzy of its 
reeling elements, will be carried by the 
arms of love to a place of security and 
everlasting triumph. 


II. This brings us to the second 
head of discourse—God is not wanting 
to glorify Himself by the death of sin- 
ners—* Who would set the thorns and 
the briers against me in battle?” The 
wicked and the righteous are often rep- 
resented in Scripture by figures taken 
from the vegetable world. The saved 
and sanctified are called trees of right- 
eousness, the planting of the Lord that 
He might be glorified. The godly man 
is said to be like a tree planted by the 
rivers of water, which bringeth forth its 
fruit in its season. The judgment which 
cometh upon a man is compared to an 
ax laid to the root of atree. A tree is 
said to be known by its fruits; and as 
a proof that the kind of character of 
men is specified by the kind of tree in 
the woods, we read that of thorns men 
do not gather figs, nor of the bramble- 
bush gather they grapes. You will ob- 
serve that the thorn is one of the kinds 
instanced in the text, and when God 
says, I would go through them, I would 
burn them together, He speaks of the 
destruction which cometh on all who 
remain in the state of thorns and briers ; 
and this agrees with what we read in 
the epistle to the Hebrews, “ That 
which beareth thorns and briers is re- 
jected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose 
end is to be burned.” 

Thorns and briers are in other places 
still more directly employed to signify 
the enemies of God. “And the light 
of Israel shall be for a fire,” says one 
of the prophets, “and his Holy One for 
a flame, and it shall burn and devour 
His thorns and His briers in one day.” 
Therefore, when God says in the text, 
“Who would set the thorns and the 
briers against me in battle? I would 


FURY NOT IN GOD, 


‘ [SERM. 
go through them, I would burn them 
together,’ He speaks of the ease where- 
with He could accomplish His wrath 
upon His enemies. They would per- 
ish before Him like the moth. They 
could not stand the lifting up of the red 
right arm of the displeasure of Al- 
mighty God. Why set up, then, a con- 
test so unequal as this? Why put the 
wicked in battle array against Him 
who could go through them and devour 
them in an instant by the breath of His 
fury? God is saying in the text that 
this is not what He is wanting. He 
does not want to set Himself forth as 
an enemy, or as a stroag man armed 
against them for the battle—it is a 
battle He is not at all disposed to enter 
into. The glory He would achieve by 
a victory over a host so feeble, is not a 
glory that His heart is at all set upon. 
Oh, no! ye children of men, He has no 
pleasure in your death; He is not seek- 
ing to magnify Himself by the destruc- 
tion of so paltry a foe; He could devour 
you ina moment; He could burn you 
up ‘like stubble; and you mistake it if 
you think that renown on so poor a 
field of contest is a renown that He is. 
at all aspiring after. Who would set 
the grasshoppers in battle array against 
the giants? Who would set thorns 
and briers in battle array against God? 
This is not what He wants: He would 
rather something else. Be assured, He 
would rather you were to turn, and to 
live, and to come into His vineyard, 
and submit to the regenerating power 
of His spiritual husbandry, and be 
changed from the nature of an accursed 
plant to a tree of righteousness. In the 
language of the next verse, He would 
rather that this enemy of His, not yet 
at peace with Him, and who may there- 
fore be likened to a brier or a thorn— 
{fe would rather than he remained so 
that he should take hold of God’s 
strength, that he may make peace with 
Him—and as the fruit of his so doing, 
he shall make peace with Him. 

Now tell me if this do not open up 
a most wonderful and a most inviting 
view of God? Jt is the real attitude in 
which He puts Himself forth to us in 
the gospel of His Son. He there says. 
in the hearing of all to whom the word 
of this salvation is sent, “ Why will ye 


Xxx. ] 


die?” It is true that by your death 
He could manifest the dignity of His 
Godhead ; He could make known the 
power of His wrath; He could spread 
the awe of His truth and His majesty 
over the whole territory of His govern- 
ment and send forth to its uttermost 
limits the glories of His strength and 
His immutable sovereignty. But He 
does not want to magnify Himself over 
you in this way; He has no ambition 
whatever after. the renown of such a 
victory, over such weak and insignifi- 
cantenemies. Their resistance were no 
trial whatever to His strength or to His 
greatness. ‘There is nothing in the de- 
struction of creatures so weak that can 
at all brmg Him ary distinction. or 
throw any aggrandizement around Him. 
And so in Scripture everywhere do we 
see Him pleading and protesting with 
you that He does not want to signalize 
Himself upon the ruin of any, but 
would rather that they should turn and 
be saved. 

And now, my brethren, what remains 
for you todo? God is willing to save 
you: are you willing to besaved? The 
way is set before you most patiently 
and clearly in the Bible—nay, the very 
text, brief as it is, points out to you 
the way, as I shall endeavour to explain 
and set before you in the third head of 
discourse. But meanwhile. and all the 
better to secure a hearing from you. let 
me ask you to lay it upon your con- 
sciences. whether you are in astate that 
will do for you to die in. [f not, then 
I beseech you to think how certainly 
death will, and how speedily it may, 
come upon the likeliest of you all. 
The very youngest among you know 
very well, that if not cut off ‘previously — 
which is a very possible thing—then 
raanhood will come, and old age will 
come, and the dying bed will come, and 
the very last look you shall ever cast on 
your acquaintances will come, and the 
agony of the parting breath will come, 
and the time when you are stretched a 
lifeless corpse before the eyes of weep- 
ing relatives will come, and the coffin 
that is to inclose you will come, and 
that hour when the company assemble 
to carry you to the churchyard will 
come, and that minute when you are 
put into the grave will come, and the 


FURY NOT IN Gpp. 


603 


throwing in of the loose earth into the 
narrow house where you are laid. and 
the spreading of the green sod over it— 
all all will come on every living crea 
ture who now hears me; and ina few 
little years the minister. who now 
speaks, and the people who now listen. 
will be carried to their long homes, and 
make room for another generation 
Now, all this, you know, must ana 
will happen—your common sense ana 
common experience serve to convince 
you of it. Perhaps it may have been 
little thought of in the days of careless 
and thoughtless and thankless uncon- 
cern which you have spent hitherto; 
but [I call upon you to think of it now, 
to lay it seriously to heart and no longer 
to trifle and delay when the high matters 
of death and judgment and eternity are 
thus set so evidently before you. And 
the tidings wherewith I am charged— 
and the blood lieth upon your own 
head and not upon mine, if you will 
not listen to them—the object of my 
coming amongst you,is to let you know 
what more things are to come; it is to 
carry you beyond the regions of sight 
and of sense to the regions of faith, and 
to assure you, mm the name of Him who 
cannot lie, that as sure as the hour of 
laying the body in the grave comes, so 
surely wil] also come the hour of the 
spirit returning to the God who gave 
it. Yes and the day of final reckon- 
ing will come, and the appearance of 
the Son of God in heaven, and His 
mighty angels around Him, will come, 
and the opening of the books will 
come, and the standing of the men 
of all generations before “the judgment- 
seat will come, and the solemn passing 
of that sentence which is to fix you for 
eternity will come. Yes, and if you 
refuse to be reconciled in the name of 
Christ, now that He is beseeching you 
to be so. and if you refuse to turn from 
the evil of your ways, and to do and to 
be what your Saviour would have you, 
I must tell you what that sentence is to 
be—* Depart from me, ye cursed, into 
everlasting fire, prepared for the ‘devil 
and his angels.” 

There is a way of escape from the 
fury of this tremendous storm. There 
is a pathway of egress from the state of 
condemnation to the state of acceptance. 


604 


FURY NOT IN GOD. 


[SERM. 


There is a method pointed out in Scrip-| tion of the sinner. But it is a ‘more 


ture by which we who by nature are 
the children of wrath, may come to be 
at peace with God. Let all ears be 
open then to our explanation of this 
way as we bid you in the language of 
our text take hold of God’s strength, 
that you may make peace with Him, 
and which if you do, you shall make 
peace with Him. 


ILL. Read now the fifth verse :—“ Or 


let him take hold of my strength, that | 
he may make peace with me; and he | 
Or, here | 


shall make peace with me.” 
is the same with rather. Rather than 
that what is spoken of in the fourth 
verse should fall upon you—rather than 


that I should engage in battle with mine | 


enemies—rather than that a result so 
melancholy to them should take place, 
as my going through them and burning 
them together—rather than that all this 
should happen, [ would greatly prefer 
that they took hold of my strength in 
order to make peace with me; and [ 
promise, as the sure effect of this pro- 
ceeding, that they shall make peace 
with me. We have not far to seek for 
what is meant by this strength, for 
Ysaiah himself speaks (ch. xxxiu. 6) of 
the strength of salvation. It is not 
your destruction but your salvation that 
(rod wants to put forth His strength in. 
There has strength been already put forth 
in the deliverance of a guilty world— 
the very strength which He wants you 
to lay hold of He will be glorified in 
the destruction of the sinner, but He 
would like better to be glorified by his 
salvation. 
more than to set fire to briers and 


thorns, and to consume them; but to, 


save you—this is indeed the power of 


God and the wisdom of God—this is the | 


mighty achievement which angels de- 
sire to look into—this is the enterprise 
upon which a mighty Captain embarked 
all the energy that belonged to Him, 
and travelled in the greatness of His 
strength until that He accomplished it ; 
and now that it is accomplished, God 
would much rather be glorified in the 


salvation of His saints, than glorified in 


the destruction of sinners. (2 Thess. 1. 


7,10.) God will show His wrath, and 
make His power known in the destruc- | 


To destroy you is to do no! 








glorious work of power to redeem that 
sinner. and this He engages to do for 
you if you will take hold of His strength. 
He would greatly prefer this way ot 
making His power known. He does 
not want to enter into battle with you, 
or to consume you like stubble by the 
breath of His indignation. No; He 
wants to transform sinners into saints: 
He wants to transform vessels of wrath 
into vessels of mercy, and to make 
known the riches of His glory on those 
whom He had afore prepared unto glo- 
ry. There is a strength put forth in 
the destruction of the simner. but there 
is also a strength put forth in the 
salvation of a sinner, and this is the 
streneth which He wants you to lay 
hold of in my text—this is the strength 
by the display of which He would pre- 
fer being glorified. He would rather 
decline entering into a contest with you 
sinners; for to gain a victory over you 
would be no more to Him than to fight 
with the briers and the thorns, and te 
consume them. But from enemies to 
make friends of you; from the children. 
of wrath to transform you into the chil- 
dren of adoption; from the state of guilt 
to accomplish such a mighty and a won- 
derful change upon you, as to put you 
into the state of justification; from the 
servants of sin to make you in the day 
of His power the willing servants of 
God; to chase away from your faculties 
the darkness of nature, and to make all 
light and comfort around you; to’ turn 
you. from a slave of sense, and to invest 
with all their rightful ascendency over 
your affections the things of eternity ; 
to pull down the strongholds of corrup- 
tion within you, and raise him who was 
spiritually dead to a life of new obedi- 
ence ;——this is the victory over you which - 
God aspires after. It is not your de- 
struction or your death that He delights 
in. or that He wants to be glorified by— 
it is your thorough and complete salva- 
tion from the punishment of sin, and 
the power of sin, on which He is desir- 
ous of exalting the glory of His strength, 
and this is the strength which he calls 
you to take hold upon. 

Let me now, in what remains, first say 
a few things more upon this strength— 
the strength of salvation which is spo 


xxx. ] 


ken of in the text—and then state very 
briefly what it is to lay hold of it. 

And first we read ofa mighty strength 
that had to be put forth in the work of 
a sinner’s justification. You know that 
all men are sinners, and so all are un- 
der the righteous condemnation of God. 
How, in the name of all that is difficult 
and wonderful, can these sinners ever 
get this condemnation removed from 
them? By what new and unheard of 
process can the guilty before God ever 
again become justified in His sight? 
How from that throne, of which it is 
said that judgment and justice are the 
habitation, can the sentence of acquittal 
ever be heard on the children of iniqui- 
ty? How can God’s honour be kept 
entire in the sight of angels if we men 
who have repeatedly mocked Him and 
insulted Him, and made our own wish 
and our own way take the precedency 
of His high and solemn requirements— 
if we, with all this contempt of the 
Liawgiver expressed in our lives. and 
all this character of rebellion against 
Him written upon our foreheads. shall 
be admitted to a place of distinction in 
heaven—and that too after God has 
committed Himself in the hearing of 
angels—after He had given us a law 
by the disposition of angels, and we 
had not kept it—and after He had said 
how the wicked shall not go unpunish- 
ed, but that cursed is every one who 
continueth not in all the words of the 
book of God’s law to do them? But 
what is more, it was not merely the 
good and the obedient angels who knew 
our rebellion—the malignant and fallen 
angels not only knew it, but they de- 
vised and they prompted it. And how. 
I would ask. can God keep the awful 
majesty of His truth and justice entire 
in the sight of His adversaries. if Satan 
and the angels of wickedness along with 
him shall have it in their power to say 
—we prevailed on man to insult Him 
by sin, and have compelled God to put 
up with the -affront, and to connive 
at it? 

Now, just in proportion to the weight 
and magnitude of the obstacle was the 
greatness of that strength which the 
Saviour put forth in the mighty work 
of moving it away. We have no ade- 
quate conception upon this matter, and 


FURY NOT IN GOD. 


605 


must just tale our lesson from revela 
tion about it;—and whether we take 
the prophecies which foretold the work 
'of our Redeemer, or the history which 
relates it. or the doctrine which expa- 
tiates on its worth and its efficacy—all 
go to establish that there was the oper- 
ation of a power—that there was the 
severity of a conflict—that there was 
the high emprise of an arduous and 
mighty warfare—that there were all the 
throes and all the exertions of a strug- 
gling and at length a prevailing energy 
in the execution of that work which our 
Saviour had to do—that He had a bar- 
rier to surmount. and that, too, with the 
cries and the pains and the sorrows of 
heavy suffering and labour—that a 
mighty obstacle lay before Him, and 
He. in the business of removing it, had 
to travel in all the greatness of the fac- 
ulties which belonged to Him—that 
ithere was a burden laid upon His 
shoulders, which by no one else but 
the Prince of Peace could have been 
borne—that there was a task put into 
His hand which none but he could ful- 
fil. And had the question ever been 
reasoned throughout the hosts of para- 
dise, Who can so bend the unchange- 
able attributes of God. who can give 
them a shift so wonderful. that the sin- 
ners who have insulted Him may be 
taken into forgiveness, and His honour 


be kept untainted and entire ?—there is 





not one of the mighty throng who 
would not have shrunk from an enter- 
prise so lofty. There is not one of 
them who could at once magnify the 
law and release man from its violated 
sanctions. There is not one of them 
who could turn its threatening’ away 
from us, and at the same time give to 
the truth and the justice of God their 
brightest manifestation. There is not 
one of them who could unravel the 
mystery of our redemption through all 
the difficulties which beset and which 
surround it. There is not one of them 
who, by the strength of his arm, could 
have obtained the conquest over these 
difficulties. And however little we may 
enter into the elements of this weighty 
speculation, let us forget not that the 
question was not merely between God 
and man—it was between God and all 
the creatures He had formed. They 


606 


saw the dilemma ;, they felt how deeply 
it involved the character of the Deity ; 
they perceived its every bearing on the 
majesty of His attributes, and on the 
stability of the government that was 
upheld by Him. With them it wasa 
matter of deep and most substantial 
interest; and when the Eternal Son 
stepped forward to carry the undertak- 
ing to its end, the feeling amongst them 
all was that a battle behooved to be 
fought, and that the strength of this 
mighty Captain of our salvation was 
alone equal to the achievement of the 
victory. 

_ “Who is this that cometh from 
Kdom, with dyed garments from Boz- 
rah? this that is glorious in His ap- 
patel, travelling in the greatness of His 
strength? I that speak im righteous- 
ness, mighty to save. Wherefore art 
thou red in thine apparel, and thy gar- 
ments like him that treadeth in the 
wine-fat? I have trodden the wine- 
press alone; and of the people there 
was none with me: for I will tread 
them in mine anger, and trample them 
in my fury; and their blood shall be 
sprinkled upon my garments. and I will 
stain all my raiment. For the day of 
vengeance is in mine heart, and the 
year of my redeemed is come. And [I 
ooked, and there was none to help; 
and I wondered that there was none 
to uphold; therefore mine own arm 
brought salvation unto me; and my 
fury, it upheld me.” 

The way of redemption has been 
found out in the unsearchable riches 
of divine wisdom, and Christ is called 
the wisdom of God. But the same 
Christ is also called the power of God. 
In the mighty work of redemption He 
put forth a strength, and it is that 
strength that we are called to take hold 
upon. There was a wonderful strength 
in bearing the wrath which would have 
fallen on the millions and millions more 
of aguilty world. There wasa strength 
which bore Him up under the agonies 
of the garden. There was a strength 
which supported Him under the hidings 
of His Father’s countenance.. There 
was a strength which upheld Him in 
the dark hour of the travail of His 
soul, and which one might think had 
well-nigh given way when He called 


FURY NOT IN GOD. 


[SERM. 
N 


out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou 

forsaken me?” There was a strength 
which carried Him in triumph through 
the contest over Satan when he buffet- 
ed Him with his temptations; and a 
strength far greater than we know of 
in that mysterious struggle which He 
held with the powers of darkness, when 
Satan fell like lightning from heaven, 
and the Captain of our salvation spoiled 
principalities and powers, and made a 
show of them openly, and triumphed 
over them. There was a strength in 
overcoming all the mighty difficulties 
which lay in the way between the sin- 
ner and God, in unbarring the gates of 
acceptance to a guilty world, in bring 

ing truth and mercy to meet, and 
righteousness and peace to enter into 
fellowship—so that God might be just, 
while He is the justifier of him who 
believeth in Jesus. 

So much for the strength which is 
put forth in the work of man’s redemp- 
tion. But there is also a strength put 
forth in the work of man’s regenera- 
tion. Christ hath not only done a great 
work for us in making good our recon- 
ciliation with God—He further does a 
great work in us when He makes us 
like unto God. But I have not time 
to dwell upon this last topic, and must 
content myself with referring you to 
the following Scriptures—Eph. i. 19; ii. 
10; Phil) iv: -133-2) Cora eae 
John xv. 5. The power which raised 
Jesus from the dead is the power which 
raises us from our death in trespasses 
and sins. The power that was put 
forth on creation is the power that 
makes us new creatures in. Jesus Christ 
our Lord. 

Neither have I time to make out a 
full demonstration of what is meant by 
laying hold of that strength. When 
you apply to a friend for some service, 
some relief from distress or difficulty, 
you may be said to lay hold of him; 
and when you place firm reliance both 
on his ability and willingness to do the 
service, you may well say that your 
hold is upon your friend—an expression 
which becomes all the more appropriate 
should he promise to do the needful 
good office, in which case your hold is 
not upon his power only, but upon his 
faithfulness. And it is even so with 


xxx: 


the promises of God in Christ Jesus— 
you have both a power and a promise 
to take hold of. If you believe that 
Christ is able to save to the uttermost 
all who come unto God through Him, 
and if you believe the honesty of His 
invitation to all who are weary and 
heavy: laden. that they might come unto 
Him and have rest unto their souls, 
thus judging Him to be faithful who 
has promised, then indeed will you lay 
hold of Christ as the power of God unto 
salvation, and according to the faith 
which has thus led you to fix upon the 
Saviour so will it be done unto you. 
To continue in this faith is in the lan- 
guage of Scripture to hold fast your 
confidence and the rejoicing of your 
hope firm unto the end. Cast not away 
this confidence which hath great recom- 
pense of reward; or if you have not yet 
begun to place this confidence in the 
assurances of the gospel, lay hold of 
them now—they are addressed to each 
and to all of you. It is not a vague 
generality of which I am speaking. 
Let every man amongst you take up 
with Christ, and trust in Him for your- 
self. 

I am well aware that unless the 
Spirit reveal to you, all I have said 
about Him will fall fruitless upon 
your ears, and your hearts will remain 
as cold and as heavy and as alienated 
as ever. Faith is His gift, and it is not 
‘of ourselves. But the minister is at his 
post when he puts the truth before you; 
and you are at your post when you 
hearken diligently, and have a prayer- 
ful spirit of dependence on the Giver of 
all wisdom—that He will -bless the 
word spoken, and make it reach your 
souls in the form of a salutary and con- 
vincing application. And it is indeed 
wonderful—it is passing wonderful, that 
there should be about us such an un- 
generous suspicion of our Father who 
is in heaven. It cannot be sufficiently 
wondered at that all the ways in which 
He sets Himself forth to us should have 
so feeble an influence in the way of 
cheering us on to a more delighted 
confidence. How shall we account for 
it—that the barrier of unbelief should 
stand so obstinately firm in spite of ev- 
ery attempt and every remonstrance— 
that the straitening should still con- 


FURY NOT IN GOD. 


607 


tinue—not the straitening of God to- 
ward us, for He has said everything to 
woo us to put our trust in Him—but 
the straitening of us towards. God, 
whereby, in the face of His every kind 
and exhilarating declaration, we persist 
in being cold and distant and afraid of 
Him. | 

I know not, my brethren, in how fa 
I may have succeeded, as an humbte 
and unworthy instrument, in drawing 
aside the veil which darkens the face 
of Him who sitteth on the throne. But 
oh, how imposing is the attitude, and 
how altogether affecting 1s the argu- 
ment with which He comes forward to 
us in the text of thisday! It is not so 
much His saying that there is no fury 
in Him—this He often tells us in other 
passages of Scripture; but the striking 
peculiarity of the words now submitted 
to us is the way in which He would 
convince us how little interest He can 
have in our destruction, and how far it 
is from His thoughts to aspire after the 
glory of such an achievement, as if He 
had said—it would be nothing to me to 
consume you all by the breath of my 
indignation—it would throw no illus- 
tration over me to sweep away the 
whole strength of that rebellion which 
you have mustered up against. me—it 
would make no more to my glory than 
if I went through the thorns and briers 
and burned them before me. This is 
not the battle [ want to engage in— 
this is not the victory by which I seek 
to signalize myself; and you mistake 
me—you mistake me, ye feeble children 
of men, if you think that I aspire after 
anything else with any one of you than 
that you should be prevailed on to come 
into my vineyard, and lay hold of my 
strength, and seek to make peace with 
me,and you shall make peace with me. 
The victory that my heart is set upon 
is not a victory over your persons—that 
is a victory that will easily be gotten in 
the great day of final reckoning over 
all who have refused my overtures, and 
would none of my reproof, and have 
turned them away from my beseeching 
offers of reconciliation. 

In that great day of the power of 
mine anger it will be seen how easy it 
is to accomplish such a victory as this— 
how rapidly the fire of my conflagratior 

& 


¥ 


608 ADDRESS TO DR. DUFF. [SERM. 


will involve the rebels who have opposed | He tries to woo you back to that house 
me in that devouring flame from which | of His from which you have wandered, 
they never, never can be extricated—j and to persuade you of His good-will, 
how speedily the execution of the con-} descends so far as to reason the matter, 
demning sentence will run through the | and to tell you that He is no more seek- 
multitude who stand at the left hand of | ing any glory from your destruction 
the avenging judge; and rest assured, | than He would seek glory from lighting 
ye men who are now hearing me, and | into a blaze the thorns and the briers, 
whom [ freely invite all to enter into; and burning them together—ah! my 
the vineyard of God, that this is not the | brethren, should it not look plain to the 
triumph that God is longing after. It| eye of faith how honest and sincere the 
ig not a victory over your persons then | God of your redemption is, who is thus 
of which He 1s at all ambitious—it isa} bowing Himself down to the mention 
victory over your wills now—it is that | of such an argument! Do lay hold of 
you do honour to His testimony by pla-| it, and be impressed by it, and cherish 
cing your reliance on it—it is that you | no longer any doubt of the good-will of 
accept of His kind and free assurances | the Lord ‘God, merciful and gracious ; 
that He has no ill-will to you—it is that | and let your faith work by love to Him 
you cast the whole burden of sullen; who hath done so much and said so 
fear and suspicion away from your/ much to engage it, and let this love 
hearts, and that now, even now, you! evince all the power of a commanding 
enter into a fellowship of peace with} principle within you, by urging your 
the God whom you have offended. Oh! every footstep to the new obedience of 
be prevailed upon. I know that terror) new creatures in Christ: Jesus your 
will not subdue you; [ cnow thatall the; Lord. 

threatenings of the law will not reclaim} Thus the two-fold benefit of the gos- 
you; I know that no direct process of | pel will be realized by all who believe 
pressing home the claims of God upon | and obey that gospel. Reconciled to 
your obedience will ever compel you to! God by the death of His Son, regenera- 
the only obedience that is of any value | ted by the power of that mighty and 
in His estimation—even the willing | all-subduing Spirit who is at the giving 
obedience of the affections to a father} of the Son, your salvation will be com- 
whom you love. But surely when He | plete—washed, and sanctified. and jus- 
puts on in your sight the countenance | tified in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
of a Father—when He speaks to you! and by the Spirit of our God. 

with the tenderness of a Father—when 











SERMON XxXXI. 
Address to Dr. Duff.* 


‘As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God: 
God will establish it forever.”’—Psaum xlviii. 8. 


Wuen a matter is only heard by us | to our impression of the testimony; but 
we may or may not believe, according | when seen as well as heard, all unbe- 
"SC hh: Lt en Meee aN lief is at an end.. In another passage 
* Dr. Duff was a favourite student of Dr. Chalmers at i ‘ 6 © . 
St. Andrew’s. On his nomination as the first missionary of the Psalms ae read— glorious things 
‘sent by the Established Chureh of Scotland to India, | are said of thee, O Zion.” At this stage 
Dr. Chalmer8 was appointed by the presbytery of Ed- : : . 
inburgh to preach and preside at the ordination on the these things Inay still be the objects of 
12th of August, 1829, in St George’s Church. Dr. Duff | distrust, or at best of a dim and dubious 
revisited Scotland in 1835, and having recruited his faith B h . : e 
health, and kindled over all the country a new zeal for a . ut when what is said to us is 
the missionary cause, he returned to Calcutta in 1839. ; 
The foilowing discourse was delivered in St. George’s gor Eee by ot unbelief ad longer 
Church, on the 10th of October in that year. stand its ground against such a verifica- 


give way before such a manifestation, 


_ disbelieved may thus become a thing of | 


+e - 


‘ 


XXxI. | ADDRESS TO DR. DUFF. 


60S 
tion When it comes to this—‘ That as| in science speak to us of conscience and 
we have heard. so have we seen in the! of consciousness, and writers in Scrip- 
sity of our God,’—when, in the lan-| ture speak of the manifestation of the 


guage of Job, we might say thereof, | 
“T have heard of Thee with the hearing | 
of the ear, but now mine eye seeth | 
Thee,” all incredulity or doubt must) 


and what before was doubted or even | 


fixed and absolute certainty. 

Now that was true of the visible and 
earthly Jerusalem may still be true of | 
the heavenly. In regard to the latter | 
the same progress, though not by the 
very same steps, from darkness to light, ' 
from doubt to certainty, may be travelled | 
under our Christian economy, that was 
frequently experienced in regard to the 
former under the Jewish economy. 





The heavenly and enduring realities” 
wherewith we have to do are first heard | 


by the hearing of the ear in the word of 


word only but in power. When we 


thus liken the mental to the ocular de- | 
monstration, we may be charged with | 


speaking figuratively, or as some may 
think mystically ; but we make use of 
no other figure than that which the 
psalmist does when he prays the Father | 
of lights that he might “ open his eyes 
to behold the wondrous things contain- 
ed in the law.” or than that which the 
greatest of the apostles does when he 
prays in behalf of his disciples. that 
“the eyes of their understandings might | 





be enlightened.” Whether in reference 
to the earthly Jerusalem, the things of 
which were afar from the Hebrews who 
lived in the provinces, or in reference to 
the heavenly Jerusalem, the things of 
which are above us all who are still but | 
pilgrims and sojourners in this world, in 

reference to both there isa way in which 


. they may be advanced from things of 
‘hearsay to things of perception. 


The 
former, that is, the Hebrews, might at 
any time see the things of their Jeru- 
salem in journeying thitherward, and 
viewing them with the eye of external 
observation. But even metaphysicians 
as well as inspired men teli us of the 
faculty of inward observation. Writers 


77 


truth to the conscience—such a mani- 
festation as is competent both to the 
barbarian and the Greek, to the wise and 
to the unwise; and in virtue of which 
even an unlettered peasant may be 
translated out of darkness into marvel- 
lous light—may confidently and war- 
rantably say, “I was once blind, but 
now I see.” 

It is now alittle more than ten years 
ago, being in August, 1829, that in the 
work of setting you apart to the office 
of a Christian missionary, I expatiated 
as fully as I could within the limits of a 
single address on the nature and evi- 
dence of this peculiar manifestation. I 


can only now state the evidence, but 


without enlarging on the explanation of 
it. The Spirit of God must interpose. 


ere an effectual cognizance can be taken 
the gospel. and may afterward be seen, 
if not with the eye of the senses at least | 
with the eye of the understanding when | 
that gospel is made to come to us not in | 


of it by men He in the first instance 
can remove the veil from the heart and 
make the consciousness of him on whom 
he operates more alive than any light 
of nature can, to the sinfulness and de- 
fects and the wretched infirmities of his 
own character. He in the second in- 
stance can remove the veil from Scrip- 
ture, and can make the conscience of 
him on whom he operates more alive 
than ‘any light of nature can, to the 
dread authority of the law, to the 
sacredness and majesty of the great 
Lawgiver. 

When such materials as these are 
thus brought within his reach, the sense 
of guilt and of danger which is thereby 
awakened not only begets the desire of 
relief. but prompts the inquiries and the 
aspirations of moral earnestness; and 
the same Spirit who by the light which 
He casts on the tablet of the human 
character, led him to behold the virr- 
lence of that moral disease under which 
be labours, also by the light which He 
casts on the tablet of the outward reve- 
lation, leads him to behold the sufficient 
and altogether suitable remedy provided 
for it in the gospel. It is this adapta- 
tion of the objective bible to the fears 
and the disorders and the felt wants of 
the subjective human nature which leads 
the converts of the present day to con- 
clude from the writings, what the con- 


610 


verts of the first age concluded from the 
words of the apostle—‘‘ These men tell 
us all that is in our hearts, and verily 
God is in them of a truth.” It is not 
less a matter of rational evidence that 
the heavenly Physician had to operate 
on the mind and enable it to see the be- 
fore hidden things of its own state and 
the things of Scripture, than it is a mat- 
ter of ocular evidence to the man who 
has been relieved of a cataract that the 
earthly physician had to operate on his 
body and enable him to see the things 
of external nature. There is no more 
of fancy or fanaticism in the one case 
than the other. The argument is the 
same in kind, though far more intense 
in the feeling of it, with that argument 
in natural theology which serves to es- 
tablish that the world of nature came 
from the hand of God because of its nu- 
merous subserviencies to the physical 
wants of man. In like manner do we 
reason that the word of Scripture has 
come to us from the hands of God, be- 
cause of its no less striking adaptations 
and subserviencies to the properties and 
wants, and so to the well-being of man’s 
moral constitution. It affects not the 
character of the argument while it adds 
prodigiously to its impression and its 
strength, that our first sight of its promi- 
ses is given us in answer to prayer or 
by the operation of the Spirit from above. 
In the face of contempt and obloquy do 
we affirm of this argument, this mani- 
festation of the truth to the conscience, 
and in virtue of which the gospel is ush- 
ered into the heart of man with power, 
and with the Holy Ghost, and with 
much assurance, that derided as it may 
have been in the halls of literature, 
where plebeian Christianity if noticed 
at all is spoken of in contumely and 
scorn, the argument is both as firm in 
its basis, and as logical in the whole of 
its structure and effect. as any reasoning 
in moral or mental science propounded 
from the chair of philosophy in all the 
forms and with all the confidence of 
academic demonstration. 

It must be on some such evidence 
that the philosophy of missions.is based. 
We send forth the heralds of salvation, 
but we cannot invest them with the 
power of working miracles as the badge 
of their apostleship. Whatever the per- 


ADDRESS TO DR. DUFF. 


_ [SERM. 


suasive influences may be which they 
carry along with them, it must be in 
the words which they utter and not in 
the works which they perform. The 
credentials of their message must be 
somehow bound up in the substance of 
the message itself, for we cannot now 
say, as did the first teachers of Christi- 
anity, Verily, the signs of an embassy 
from heaven have been wrought amongst 
you in signs and wonders and mighty 
deeds; but in the absence of these ac- 
companiments, external to the message, 
and which they could appeal to in other 
days as vouchers for its credibility, there 
may still be the same credibility in the 
very things of the message itself which 
from the beginning has been applied to 
them. By one faculty they might hear 
the message, and by another faculty, as 
that of seeing, they can be made to per- 
ceive the truth of its subject-matter, and 
to say—As we heard, so have we seen 
—then may it be understood how, with- 
out a sensible miracle, there may arise 
in the mind a well-founded belief in the 
truth of Christianity. , 
Now this is precisely what happens 
in the great majority, we should rather 
say in all the instances of conversion, 
whether in or out of Christendom. 
What is received by one faculty, by 
the hearing of the ear, is recognized by 
another, not by the seeing with the eye 
of the outer, but by the seeing with the 
eye of the inner man. After that the 
Spirit of God has made palpable to the 
exercised conscience of the inquirer the 
disease of humanity, and has made 
alike palpable the adaptations profound- 
ly skilful and pregnant with the most 
satisfactory evidence of that counterpart 
remedy which is provided for it in the 
gospel—it is thus that without miracle, 
with no other operation than that of 
preaching the word and praying for the 
Spirit to give it efficacy, and by no 
other apparatus than the simple appa- 
ratus of the Bible and the conscience, 
may a light be struck out between 
them, by which things hidden from the 
wise and the prudent are revealed to 
the veriest babes in literature. It is 
this which makes the evidence of Chris- 
tianity so accessible to every member 
of the human family—so portable, if 1 
may use the expression, to every quar 


_XXxr. | 


ter of -be globe. Thus one and the 
same messas° from heaven might well 
find the same acceptance everywhere, 
and that because of the identity of hu- 
man nature all the world over. It is 
thus that the word of God can open for 
itself an avenue to the inner recesses 
of every soul—and discerner as it is of 
the thoughts and intents of the heart, 
can work a deeply seated conviction 
there of its own truth, and its own 
authority. It is the key which un- 
locks every bosom, and by its universal 
adaptation to the universal state and 
character of humanity, it is fitted to 
establish its own moral supremacy in 
every territory where men are to be 
found. The children of this world may 
denounce and may deride as mystical 
that light which is to lighten all na- 
tions, that evidence which is to Chris- 
tianize ail people. But, blessed be 
God, that selfevidencing power of the 
truth, which is the laughing stock of 
many adversaries, is more and more a 
thing now of experimental verification. 
Without it we should be powerless 
- abroad, and there would be fanaticism 
and folly in the enterprise of mission- 
aries; but without it we should be 
alike powerless and inefficient at home, 
and there would be the very same fa- 
naticism and folly in the ordinary min- 
istrations of our own clergymen, the 
Sabbath services of our own land. And 
therefore, blessed be God, that we can 
now lift our appeal to the facts and find- 
ings of every-day experience. In the 
name of those daily conversions which 
are now taking place in the wilds of 
Paganism—in the name of those glori- 
ous revivals which are now taking place 
within the limits of our own Church 
and country, do we affirm the equal 
significancy and equal power of mani- 
festation in both, so that when speaking 
of the Holy Ghost and the efficacy of 
his demonstration on the consciences 
of men, we only speak the things of 
actual and historical fulfilment, we are 
but speaking the words of truth and of 
soberness. | 

To be fully accomplished for the 
work of a missionary one would need 
to conjoin two things which are often 
to be in a state of separation from each 
other, and not so often realized tewether 


ADDRESS TO DR. DUFF. 


Eee ee ee ee 


61} 


in the character and person of one and 
the same individual. The first is that 
wisdom which in the regulation of ali 
its proceedings bears a respect to the 
general laws of nature and lessons of 
experience ; the second is that piety 
which looks for the success of its pro- 
ceedings only to the special blessing of 
God. In virtue of the former our ac- 
complished missionary will be as stren- 
uous in the forthputting and exercise of 
his own powers as if man did all—in 
virtue of the latter he will be as dis- 
trustful of self, and as humbly depend- 
ing on the power that is above, as if 
God did all. It is because of the form- 
er that he works, and it is because of 
the latter that he prays—a truly blessed 
fellowship, to which, in the history of 
Christianization by human agency, the 
gospel of Jesus Christ is indebted for 
all its triumphs, from the days of Paul, 
who strove mightily according to the 
grace of God that worked in him 
mightily, to the days of a more recent 
apostleship, beginning with the mis- 
sionary Kliot, who, as the fruit of his 
lengthened and laborious experience 
among the Indians of North America, 
left behind this most precious of record- 
ed sayings—That through faith in 
Christ Jesus it was in the power of 
pains and of prayer to do anything. 
Every view which can be taken of 
the office to which ten years ago you 
were set apart in this place by the Pres- 
bytery of Edinburgh, points to the same 
conclusion. Among others, the text to 
which we have referred, and on which 
we have founded the peculiar argument 
of this day, affords a very clear and pal- 
pable illustration of it. The message 
of the gospel must first be received by 
the hearing of the bodily ear, for “how 
shall they believe in Him of whom they 
have not heard?” And this message of 
the gospel must, secondly, be recognized 
as true by the seeing of the mental eye 
—by that faith which is not of our- 
selves, but is the gift of God. For the 
fulfilment of the first of these objects 
you have put forth an industry, and let 
me add, a sagacity, both alike evincing 
the important share which the natural 
faculties of man have in the business of 
amissionary. By a device of admira: 
ble skilfulness and correspondent suc- 


612 


cess, you have brought many of the 
most influential families of Hindostan 
within reach of the hearing of the word 
of God. You have instituted a school 
mainly of scriptural lessons and scrip- 
tural exercises. You have practised no 
deceit upon the natives. for all is above 
boards and it is universally known that 
the volume which forms the great text 
and substratum of your scholarship, is 
the book of the religion of the Chris- 
tians. But you at the same time. have 
studied to multiply the attractions of 
this school—you have not only institu- 
ted a lectureship on the evidences of 
Christianity, but, for the purpose of en- 
gaging the attendance chiefly of the 
higher classes you have pressed into the 
service both the physical and the math- 
ematical sciences, and what mrght star- 
tle some, have superadded the doctrines 
of political economy—and all that the 
votaries of science might be lured within 
the precincts of sacredness. It is thus 
that the youth of India of all ranks, and 
especially of the upper orders of society, 
have passed through your seminary in 
successive hundreds, familiarized with 
the language and seasoned with the 
subject-matter of inspiration. It is thus 
that many have heard with the hearing 
of the ear, and at least been disarmed 
of all hostility to the gospel, and some 
of these many have been made to see, 
and been converted, and become the de- 
clared friends and champions of our 
faith. It delights me, sir, to know, as 
the fruit of my intimate converse and of 
my acquaintance with your principles 
and your thoughts, that while you have 
done so mutch to obtain an extensive 
hearing for the gospel of Jesus Christ 
in the-most likely and promising quar- 
ters of human society, you are at the 
same time fully and feelingly aware 
what that high and external quarter is 
whence alone the seeing comes, and that 
unless a blessing, to be evoked only by 
prayer, shall descend from the sanctuary 
above upon your enterprise, all the la- 
bour you have bestowed upon it will 
prove but a vain and empty parade. 
Let me earnestly recommend the con- 
tinuance of this sacred and fruitful union 
—a union between the diligence of ev- 
er-working hands and the devotion of 
ever-praying hearts. Men of various 


ADDRESS TO DR. DUFF. 


[SERM 


moods and temperaments and different 
states of spirituality and intellect. will 
be variously affected by the spectacle. 
Those of shrewd, but withal of secular 
intelligence, will think lightly of your 
supplications, perhaps even speak con- 
temptuously of those outpourings of the 
Spirit on which, I trust, you will ever 
wait and ever watch with humble ex- 
pectancy. Those of serious, but withal 
of weak and driveling piety, will think 
lightly of your science, and perhaps 
even speak with rebuke of your geom- 
etry, and your economics. and your oth- 
er themes of strange and philosophic 
nomenclature. as things that have in 
them a certain cast of heathenish inno- 
vation, prejudicial to the success, be- 
cause incongruous with the simplici- 
ty of the gospel. But amid these re- 
proaches on the right and on the left, 
persevere as you have begun; and 
whether. on the one hand they be the 
cold rationalists who assail you with 
their contempt, or, on the other hand, 
they be the fanatical religionists who 
look on you with intolerance, continue 
to do what all men of sense and of sa- 
credness have done before, and you will 
at length reap the fulfilment of the say- 
ing—that wisdom is justified of her chil- 
dren. 

Before coming to a close, I cannot but 
advert to that special Providence which 
has withdrawn you for a season from 
the immediate field of your missionary 
labours. What threatened to be a dis- 
aster has turned out a signal blessing 
to this Scheme of the General Assem- 
bly. It has given ten-fold impulse to 
the cause; nor do [ need to expatiate at 
all on the palpable fact, that by your 
presence and your exertions at home, 
you have enhanced, and fully in this 
proportion. the interest felt throughout 
Scotland in the Christianity of India. 
But over and above this special benefit, 
there is another of a still more compre- 
hensive character, conferred by your 
means upon the Church, and which, if 
rightly followed up, will tell most pros- 
perously and productively in the ad- 
vancement of all its Schemes.—I allude 
to the advocacy you have made of your 
objects and views, and that not an ad- 
vocacy confined to a particular spot 
whither all who chose might repair and 


XXXI. ] 


listen to you, but an advocacy carried 
by your own personal locomotion from 
one part of the country to another, so 
that instead of waiting till the public 
should by a spontaneous act shake off 
its own apathy, you with greater wis- 
dom, and far greater effect, went aggres- 
sively forth in making assault upon a 
public awakened by the urgency of your 
appeals out of the slumber of its before 
deep and hopeless indifference. This is 
the only way to originate an interest 
not yet felt and the best way by which 
_ to perpetuate and vastly to extend it. 
You were the first, I believe, to set the 
example of thus passing from parish to 
parish, and from presbytery to presby- 
tery. in behalf of your own cause, and 
it only needs to be so carried forward in 
behalf of other causes, as to fill the 
whole length and breadth of the land, 
in order to reap a ten-fold more abundant 
harvest from the liberalities of the peo- 
ple than has ever yet been realized, and 
to make the beloved Church of our 
fathers the most efficient organ of Chris- 
tian beneficence which the world ever 
saw. 

Allow me, sir, to say, as being spe- 
cially connected with another great 
Scheme of the Church. of Scotland,* 
that we are both alike free of those jeal- 
-ousies which are sometimes felt between 
one philanthropic society and another. 
They proceed, it appears to me, on a 
false arithmetic, or rather on a misap- 
prehension, in virtue of which it is that 
the natural and what may be called the 
moral arithmetic, are confounded with 
each other. It is by the natural that 
you estimate the means—it is by the 
moral that you estimate the motives; 
and it is quite a possible thing that the 
process by which the means of benevo- 
lence are somewhat abridged, may be 
the very process by which a ten-fold 
force is given to the motives of benevo- 
lence. Nothing more palpably true 
than that the guinea which has been 
parted with for some object of foreign 
charity, is no longer in reserve for an 
object of home charity. But.the same 
application which drew the guinea from 
the hand, sent an impulse to the heart, 
insomuch that he who has been so ope- 


* The Church Extension Scheme. 


ADDRESS TO DR. DUFF. 





$13 


rated upon is a mcre hopeful subject for 
a fresh application than the man whose 
purse has never yet been opened—and 
just because his sensibilities have never — 
yet been addressed in the cause of liber- 
ality. It is true, in fact, that our two 
causes, our two committees, might work 
into each other’s hands. Should the 
first take the precedency, and traverse 
for collections the whole of Scotland, the 
second would only find the ground more 
softened and prepared for an abundant 
prodtce to itself, It acts not by exhaus- 
tion—it acts by fermentation. It is 
preposterous to speak of exhaustion. 
Who exhausts himself?—who carries 
his charities so far as to abridge by them 
the general habit of his expenditure ?— 
who does more than cast into the trea- 
sury some unmissed fraction of that fund 
which is familiarly known by the name 
of pocket-money ?—who, after such a 
surrender, does not feel himself to all 
sense as entire as before for a new ap- 
plication, and only the more inured by 
it to the self-denial and the sacrifices of 
charity. 

Let there be two towns of equal 
wealth and population, the first of 
which has never been addressed in 
behalf of any philanthropic object, and 
the second of which is plied every fort- 
night for one or other of those nu- 
merous societies that are now in ope- 
ration—to which of them would the 


patrons of some new enterprise repair 


with the greatest hope of success? All 
experience replies to the Jatter of them: 
They are mainly, in fact, the same 
names which recur and are prominent 
in all the most distinguished charities 
of our land. By each distinct contribu- 
tion the fund of charity is doubtless 
somewhat impaired; but all the feel- 
ings of charity—a willingness to distri- 
bute—a readiness to communicate— 
these are enhanced by the exercise; 
and we are yet very far from the maxi- 
mum to which, under the operation of 
these various elements, the liberalities 
of our population may be carried. With 
the slight encroachment that is made by 
one society on the materiel of benevo- 
lence, there is a quickening and an ex- 
citement given to the morade of it—and 
the other societies just speed in propor- 
tion the more that they follow in the 


614 


direction of that predecessor which has 
opened a way for them. We are not 
counting on the powers of that alchemy 
which transmutes everything into gold 
—ours is a higher and nobler alchemy 
—the alchemy of the heart—in virtue 
of which the charity which in behalf 
of some one object is kindled there, ex- 
pands at length from one object to an- 
other, till it has learned to cast a wide 
and a wakeful eye over all the suffer- 
ings and all the necessities of our spe- 
cies. They therefore who would repre- 
sent our two committees as of adverse 
influence and operation upon each other, 
have never attended either to the facts 
or to the philosophy of the subject, and 
evince the same gross misunderstand- 
ing of the true mechanism of our na- 
ture that is done by those who would 
repress the liberality of the working- 
classes in behalf of Bible or missionary 
objects. lest it should haste their descent 
to a lower level. and fill the neighbour- 
hood with pauperism. The fact is. that 
it widens their distance from pauper- 
ism and translates into the moral habit 
and elevation of generosity those who 
otherwise might be degraded into that 
sloth or that sordidness which turn so 
many into receivers. It is on these 
grounds that I would have the two 
committees to join hand in hand, and 
to act in perfect fearlessness and perfect 
friendship the one with the other. The 
success of the first will be the best secu- 
rity or guarantee for the success of the 
second — they will grow with each 
other’s growth—they will strengthen 
with each other’s strength. 

But I ought to apologize for expatiat- 
ing on this topic so long, while you sir 
are standing before me. It is for the 
purpose of expressing my hope, that un- 
der the inspiration of that principle 
which under God you have done so 
much to awaken, both the prayers and 
the liberalities of this your native land 
will follow you where you are going. 
I confidently feel that I am but the or- 
gan for the expressing of the collective 
and unanimous mind of this congrega- 
tion. when I say that their prayers and 
their wishes go along with you. In 
the language of Paul to his converts, 
we would commend you to God and to 
the word of His grace, which is able to 


ADDRESS TO DR. DUFF. 


[SERM 


build you up. and to give you and al] 
your spiritual children an inheritance 
among them which are sanctified. It 
is not for us to lift that veil which over- 
hangs the secrets of futurity, or with 
prophetic inspiration to utter these 
words of the apostle for which His 
disciples sorrowed most of all—that we 
shall see your face no more. To God 
alone is reserved the knowledge of the 
times and of the seasons, and to us be- 
longs a solemn sense of the uncertainty 
of -these things. Enough for us that 
we know our present duty, and the cer- 
tainty of their future heaven to every 
faithful disciple of the Lord Jesus; yet 


without presumption, I trust, may we 


give utterance to the impression that is 
upon our spirits, of the aspect—the sin- 
gularly prophetic aspect, not merely of 
the days in which we live, but both of 
Christendom, that region you are about 
to leave, and of Eastern Asia. that re- 
gion of ancient idolatry whither you 
are going; for we can notice on that 
distant horizon the faint breakings of 
evangelical light, which, like the dawn 
of early morn, may perhaps increase 
more and more till the drying up of the 
Euphrates, that the way of the kings 
of the East may be prepared. And 
here, in strong and immediate manifes- 
tation, do we see the heavings of a gen- 
eral and wayward restlessness till all 
the ancient kingdoms of authority have 
been loosened —and perhaps through 
a mid-way passage of desolations and 
judgments, the kingdoms of this world 
are soon to become the kingdoms of 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
But we shall enter no further on these 
topics of yet unfulfilled prophecy, or 
attempt to grope our way through not 
a total, but a twilight darkness—a 
darkness visible over the perspective 
which lies before us. Duties are ours 
—events are God's; and while we med- 
dle not with the matters too high for 
us—with the secret things which be- 
long to Him, let us ever bear in mind, 
that one of the most clearly revealed 
things which belong to us and to our 
children, is to preach the gospel to 
every creature under heaven. God 
grant that each of us in his own proper 
vocation may be found faithful in that 
day, giving full proof of his ministry ; 


XXXII. | SERMON AT THE OPENING OF FREE ST. JOHN’S, GLASGOW. 615 


and whether in churches at home or i time of the earth’s coming regenera- 
missionaries abroad, may both you and | tion, in the full development of which 
we have grace to acquit ourselves as | it is that the cross of Christ shall be- 
faithful labourers throughout this seed- | hold the consummation of its triumphs. 


- 





SERMON XXXII. 


Sermon.at the Opening of Free St. John’s, Glasgow.* 
“Take heed what ye hear.” —Marx iv. 24. “Take heed therefore how ye hear.” —Luke viii. 18. 


Tue mightiest effects are ascribed to | of the vast importance of hearing, one 
hearing in : Scripture. That little organ, | cannot but think, at the opening of a 
the human ear, is spoken of as the duct new church, how big, how pregnant 
or pathway by which the richest bless-| such an event must prove either for 
ings whereof humanity is capable are | weal or wo to hundreds—it may be thou- 
conveyed to the soul. In one place we sands—of unperishable spirits, because: 
read of it as the channel by which faith standing, as it may, for centuries—nay, 
enters—‘* Faith cometh by hearing ;” the site, perhaps, of future fabrics to the 
and it is “ by faith that we are saved.” 'end of the world. What is to be done 
In another, that our life, by which life here may tell on the everlasting destiny 
everlasting is meant, hinges upon it— not of ourselves only, but of our chil- 
“ Hear, and your soul shall live.” And) dren’s children throughout many gener- 
again, In counterpart to this we read ations. We are sometimes told of the 
that—‘ If ye will not hear, I wil send | mighty doings which go on within the 
a curse upon you; I will bring your! walls of an exchange, where the bar- 
house to desolation.”—all marking that | gains that are made from week to week, 
somehow or other, to hear, and to hear | the commercial transactions which are 
aright, is the channel and the great step- | there settled, bear on the state and for- 
ping-stone to those who now sit in the tune of whole classes of society—or 
shadow of death, and by which they are | within the walls of a university, where 
conducted to life everlasting. _ the lessons daily given are deposited ‘in 
With such representations as these | the minds of assembled youth, wh, in 
| the coming age, are to fill the highest 
* “T had the high satisfaction,” says Dr. Merle d’Au- departments ‘of public deat hiner ee 
bigné, in his work entitled “Germany, England, and | +, . 
Scotland,” “ of hearing Dr. Chalmers. You know that | Within the walls of a court-house, where 


he was minister of Glasgow, first in the Tron Church, | sentences are passed by which character, 
tablishment in 1843, his people built him a Free Church, earthly interests. are disposed of—or 
to show what can be done in our own day by the free 
eg ev nts which 
land. I will not here repeat passages of the sermon; I of nations, and thos great ents whic 
Diodati, one of the best preachers of Geneva, are known 
had first begun to be known to the Christian world. 
than these, all that we have now spoken 
ean have no idea of the order and the devotion ef the 
service only. There was another in the afternoon, and doings which take place within the 


and afterwards in St. John’s. Dr. Brown, his friend 
in which they studiously endeavoured to give the archi- 
within the walls of a parliament, on 
contributions of Christians. The steeple tower and 
ne | fi h f this world’s larg 
have already spoken of Chalmers, and besides, some gure on the arena of this worids large 
| 
to everybody. But what I would say is, that it was the | larger vision. who has an eye and a 
! 
| 
You can imagine the desire felt in that city to hear him 
of is eclipsed and cast into the shade by 
assembly. The collection on leaving the church 
” 
one in the evening.” The sermon which follows was | walla ofa church, and which concern a 
| 











and successor in the latter church, having left the Es- | and property. and life, the dearest of all 
tecture a certain styte of elegance, in order, no doubt, 

whose votes and decisions hang the fate 
fagade of this church make it one of the finest in Scot- 
of his discourses, translated into French by Professor | and visible history. But to a man of 
last time that Chalmers preached in Glasgow, where he comprehension for things still larger 
—the crowds that gathered from all quarters; but you 

3 o 

amounted to 40,000 francs—£1600—for the morning the might and the mas nificence of those 
the one thus alluded oe eee at the o ne of Free 

far sublimer history than that of na- 


St. John’s, Glasgow, on June 8, 1845. a The whole sum 
t the diff : 5 . 
eontributed on that occasion a e erent services tions, even th e hist ory of s ouls subsist- 


amounted to £1778, 14s. 114d. 


616 


ing in immortal vigour after all the em- 
pires of earth shall have fallen; and on 
the high scale and reckoning of eter- 
nity, the annals of our entire species, 
from the creation of Adam to the day 
of judgment, shall appear like a tale that 
is told, or but a brief evolution in the 
progress of an administration that never 
ends. They are words of eternal life 
which are spoken here; and on your 
reception of these words it depends 
whether that life is to be laid hold of, or 
that life of blessedness and glory is to 
be forever forfeited. They are the seeds 
of an unfading vegetation which are 
falling abroad and being scattered here; 
and it will depend on the soil of your 
own hearts whether they shall. germi- 
nate into the briers and thorns whose 
end is to be burned, or into trees of 
righteousness to be afterwards trans- 
planted into the Paradise of God. 

But human hearts are reached through 
the medium of human ears; and it is 
on the question of how you hear, that 
there hinges the mighty difference be- 
tween a wretched and a glorious etern- 
ity. God seeth not as God seeth, and 
they estimate things in heaven in an- 
other way than we do on earth; and so 
this fabric, which rises in such graceful 
elevation before the sight of admiring 
passengers, bears to the spiritual eye a 
far deeper interest in its future history 
than it does to the natural eye in its 
present aspect. By the one estimate 
we pronounce on what is manifest to 
all—the tastefulness and beauty of the 
edifice in which we are now assembled ; 
by the other estimate we pronounce on 
things of mightier import, though not 
to be evolved till the day shall declare 
them, when the Lord writeth up the 
people, and will count of this man and 
that man that he was born there. The 
outgoings of this place are to eternity ; 
and the angels above are fastening their 
regards on it as they would on a nursery 
of immortals, who may yet company 
with themselves in their everlasting 
habitations. And oh, it is affecting to 
think, that within these four corners, 
and on this limited platform before me, 
an operation may from Sabbath to Sab- 
bath be going on in human bosoms, 
subtle and unseen, it may be, but 
charged with results of which heaven 


SERMON AT THE OPENING OF FREE ST. JOHN’S, GLASGOW. 


[SERM. 


and hell will attest the magnitude and 
the endurance, long after this earth is 
burned up, and these heavens have 
passed away. The word of the gospel 
sounded forth here will. let us hope, be 
to many the savour of life unto life, and 
to some, we fear—oh! that we could 
warrantably say, not to many. or to any 
—will it be the savour of death unto 
death. 

But this big alternative will at once 
convince us, that it is not every sort of 
hearing that will serve the purpose—a 
lesson strongly and impressively set 
forth in the parable of the sower. It is 
only by hearing in a certain way that 
we come toa saving knowledge of the 
truth as itis in Jesus. And indeed the © 
same holds of all other sciences and 
all other subjects, as well as Christian- 
ity—in the things of human as well as 
in the things of divine ledrning—in the 
lessons of natural knowledge as well as 
in the lessons of religion. I should like 
you to consider wherein it is that those 
two great branches of mental acquisi- 
tion and improvement agree, and thus 
that you may be all the better prepared 
to understand wherein, also, it is that . 
they differ. To master any part of 
common or literary education, you must 
often listen to the instructions of a 
teacher; but it is not every kind of 
hearing that will avail you—you must 
hear with an earnest desire after knowl- 
edge. And so it is in religion; for we 
read in the Bible that we must give 
earnest heed to the things which we 
have heard, and desire the sincere milk 
of the word. And you must hear with 
attention—but so also is it in religion, 
for in the Bible we read, and that re- 
peatedly, that we must attend to the 
words of instruction. And we must 
be diligent in hearing; but as in com- 
mon scholarship, so in the scholarship 
by which we become wise unto salva- 
tion; for we further read, that if we 
hearken diligently to the Lord, He will 
cause us to behold that which is good, 
and our soul shall delight itself in fat- 
ness.—all marking, therefore, a similar- 
ity in the methods by which we come 
to the understanding and knowledge of 
natural things, and to that knowledge 
of God and of Jesus Christ which is 
life everlasting. In both these depart- 


XXXII. | 


SERMON AT THE OPENING OF FREE ST. JOHN’S, GLASGOW. 


617 


ments, then, the human mind is put] pare passage with passage, and address 


upon a like busy and strenuous exercise 
of its faculties—the faculty of earnest 
desirousness, the faculty of attention, 
the habits and the faculties of unwea- 
tied industry. The pursuits and the 
processes by which we arrive at a natu- 
ral knowledge of the things which con- 
cern us here, are in all these respects at 
one with the pursuits and processes by 
which we arrive at the spiritual and the 
‘saving knowledge of the things which 
belong to our everlasting peace, or to 
the good of our eternity. But along 
with this there is one most important 
respect in which they differ and we feel 
an explanation of that difference to be 
necessary ere we can found upon it our 
special directions for taking heed how 
you hear. 

But before explaining this difference, 
let me again state—and I cannet do it 
too clearly or too earnestly—that though 
something more is necessary for the 
scholarship of Christianity than for the 
scholarship of human learning. yet there 
should be the same busy application of 
natural methods and of the natural fac- 
ulties when engaged with the prosecu- 
tion of both. Whatever the something 
may be which is needed for religious. 
and which is not needed for other and 
ordinary knowledge, it is nothing which 
ought to supersede your utmost desire, 
your utmost attention, and the utmost 
forthputting of all your intellectual 
powers, whether of memory, or of ap- 
prehension, or of rational inference, or 
of the common mental efforts by which 
you arrive at the understanding of any- 
thing else, and which you should just 
put forward in like manner when you 
are labouring to understand the doctrine 
of God as revealed in the Old and New 
Testaments. Whatever more is neces- 
sary for the right discernment of these, 
it is not intended to set aside the natural 
powers of the mind, but, in fact, it stim- 
ulates. and gives effect to the exertion of 
them. If you want to become wise in 
the contents of the Bible, deal with it as 
you would with any other book whose 
contents you wanted to master and thor- 
oughly understand—tread it diligently— 
read it heedfully—read it with the stren- 
uous exercise of all the intelligent and 
discerning powers of the mind—com- 


yourself to this work of divine author- 
ship just as you would to a work of 
human authorship. It is true that there 
is a distinction between the two but 
not such a distinction as should obliter-. 
ate the sameness or similarities of treat- 
ment which I have now insisted on. 
Take this along with you, I entreat; 
and then may I, with all the greater 
safety, make known to you what that 
distinction is. 

The distinction is this:—You can 
become a proficient in the things of 
natural religion, by dint of the natural 
faculties, and of these alone. To be- 
come a proficient in the knowledge of 
things spiritual and divine, you must 
still put forth, and that on their most 
strenuous and busy exercise, your nat- 
ural faculties, but you will never come 
to the knowledge of these other and 
higher things—that is, never to the 
knowledge of them savingly and spiritu- 
ally—by these alone. You must ply, 
and that with all perseverance and all 
diligence, your powers of attention and 
understanding, both m the hearmg and 
the reading of the Scriptures; but still 
you will not succeed unless the Spirit 
of God come down from on high, and 
open your understanding to understand 
the Scriptures. This is the great pecu- 
liarity which appertains to the Bible, 
and to no other book in the world. 
When it is a book of mere human per- 
formance, then by the mere unaided ex- 
ercise of my own human powers I can 
master all that is in it—and. after, say 
two or three perusals, I may get posses- 
sion of the whole mind and meaning 
of its author, and have nothing more 
to learn from him. It is not so with 
the Bible. The Spirit of God is there 
speaking to me, for it is He who dic- 
tated the whole of that volume, inso- 
much that every word and every sen- 
tence of it is the produce of His inspira- 
tion. But for me to read it with right 
and saving discernment, the Spirit of 
God must not only speak to me, He 
must also work in me—so that not only 
does he hold forth to me a light from 
without, even that word of God where- 
of He is the alone author, but He must 
also clear up my faculty of vision with- 
in, and so open my eyes as to behold 





618 


the wondrous things which are con- 
tained therein. It is thus that by 
means of this peculiarity which signal- 
izes the Bible, which separates and sets 
it apart from all the works of human 
authorship—it is thus that this great 
work, this word of God, makes proof 
of its high original, its descent from 
heaven to all those who, enlightened 


from on high, are enabled to read or to. 


hear it, not with natural only, but with 
spiritual discernment. We have al- 
ready said, that whatever man can 
write or man can speak, man also, per- 
haps at one or two readings, or at one 
or two hearings, can fully understand 
But when God writes, as He has done 
in the Bible, or when God speaks, as 
He does by the mouth of those who are 
the expounders of the Bible, then tak- 
ing up its own language, we may say, 
Who hath known the mind of the Lord, 
or who hath been His counsellor, unless 
by the help of that Spirit who alone 
searcheth all things, even the deep 
things of God? It is thus that with- 
out the Spirit the Bible is a sealed 
book to us, while with the Spirit, its 
otherwise hidden and _ unsearchable 
things come forth in open manifesta- 
tion; for as an evidence of its divine 
. property, and so of its divine original, 
while human compositions can tell us 
no more after two or three perusals— 
in behalf of this divine composition we 
appeal to the aged Christian peasant, 
who has read his Bible a hundred times 
over, whether, as he is now reading, 
some new light and new lesson have 
not evolved themselves so as to refresh 
and satisfy his soul, as if the Spirit at 
every new time made some new and 
additional disclosure from the contents 
of the book, the truths and the treas- 
ures of which are inexhaustible—inso- 
much that to the end of his days it 
proves to him a mine of endless wealth, 


from which he is ever getting more, the | 


more he explores and the more he digs 
in it, so that every day he finds in ita 
greater fulness of meaning than before, 
and every day is more satisfied with its 
richness. 

Before proceeding to found any di- 
rections on this important peculiarity 
by which the things of Scripture stand 


distinguished rom all the things of | 


SERMON AT THE OPENING OF FREE ST. JOHN’S, GLASGOW. 





[SERS 


mere natural knowledge or of mere hu- 
man authorship, I should like to pre- 
sent you with an illustration of the dif- 
ference between a natural and a spir- 
itual discernment of the very same 
truth, though time is passing on, and 
I must therefore confine myself to give 
one instance as an example of all the 
rest. | Bet 

We have not to travel out of the rec- 
ord for the purpose of having this truth 
made known to us—that God is every- 
where present. It meets the observa- 
tion of the natural man in -his reading 
of the Bible; and he understands, o1 
thinks he understands, the terms on 
which it is delivered ; and he can speak 
of it with consistency ; and he ranks it 
with the other attributes of God; and 
he gives it an avowal and a formal ad- 
mission among the articles of his creed 
—and yet with all this parade of light 
and of knowledge, he, upon the subject 
of the all-seeing and the ever-present 
Deity, labours under all the obstinacy 
of an habitual blindness. Carry him 
abroad, and you will find that the light 
which beains upon his senses from the 
objects of sight completely overpowers 
that light which ought to beam upon 
his spirit from this object of faith. He 
may occasionally think of it as he does 
of other things; but for every ong prac- 
tical purpose, the thought abandons him 
so soon as he goes into company, or 
takes a part in the next worldly con- 
cern, which in the course of his busi- 
ness comes round to him. It com- 
pletely disappears as an element of 
conduct, and he talks and thinks and 
reasons just as he would have done had 
his mind in reference to God been in a 
state of entire darkness. If anything 
like a right conception of the matter 
ever existed in his heart, the din and 
the daylight of the world drive it all 
away from him. 

Now, to rectify this case, it is surely 
not necessary that the Spirit add any- 
thing to the truth of God’s omnipresence 
as it is put down in the written record : 
it will be enough that He gives to the 
mind on which He operates a steady 
and enduring impression of this truth. 
Now, this is one part of His office; and 
accordingly it is said of the unction of 
the Spirit, that it is an unction which 


" XXXII] 


remaineth. Neither is it necessary that 
the light which He communicates should 
consist in any vision which He gives to 
the eye, or in any bright impression upon 
the fancy, of any one thing not to be 
found within the pages of the Bible; it 
ill be enough if He give ¢ clear ane 
vigorous apprehension of the truth. just 
as it is written. to the understanding. 
Though the Spirit should do no more 
_than give vivacity and effect to the truth 
of the constancy of God’s presence, just 
as it stands in the written record, this 
will be quite enough to make the man 
who is under its influence carry an ha- 
bitual sense of God, about with him— 
think of Him in the shop and in the 
market-place—walk with Him all the 
day long, and feel the same moral re- 
straint upon his doings as if some vis1- 
ble superior, whose virtues he revered 
and whose approbation he longed after, 
haunted his every footstep. and kept an 
attentive eye fastened upon the whole 
course of his history. The natural man 
may have sense. and he may have sa- 
gacity, and a readiness withal to admit 
the constancy of God’s presence as an 
undeniable doctrine of the Bible; but 
to the power of this truth he is dead 
and it is only to the power of this world’s 
interests and pleasures that he is alive. 
The spiritual man is the reverse of all 
this. and that without carrying his con- 
ceptions a single hairbreadth beyond 
the communications of the written mes- 
sage., He makes no pretensions to wis- 
dom by one jot or tittle beyond the tes- 
timony of Scripture; and yet. after all, 
he lives under a revelation to which the 
other is a stranger. It does not carry 
him by a single footstep without the 
field of the written revelation, but it 
throws a radiance over every object 
within it. It furnishes him with a con- 
stant light which enables him to with- 
stand the domineering influence of sight 
and of sense. He dies unto the world 
—he lives unto God; and the reason is 
that there rests upon him a peculiar 
manifestation by which the truth is 
made visible to the eye of his mind, and 
a peculiar energy by which it comes 
home upon his conscience. And if we 
come to inquire into the cause of this spe- 
ciality, it is the language of the Bible, 
confirmed as we believe it to be by the 


SERMON AT THE OPENING OF FREE ST. JOHN’S, GLASGOW. 


61S 


soundest experience, that every power 
which nature has conferred upon man, 
exalted to its highest measure, and called 
forth to its most strenuous exercise, is 
not able toaccomplish it ; that it is due 
to a power above nature and beyond it; 
that it is due to what the apostle calls 
the demonstration of the Spirit—a dem- 
onstration withheld from the self-suffi- 
client exertions of man, and given to his 
believing prayers. 

Now take this as a specimen of what 
holds in regard to all the other doctrines 
and truths of our holy religion. There 
is acertain understanding of them which 
the natural man has, but this is very 
different from the spiritual and practical 
discernment of them which he alone can 
have who has been taught of God, or 
come under the teaching of the Holy 
(chost—a teaching, however, [ would 
have you well to observe, not by which 
you are informed of things that are not 
in this book, but only a teaching which 
impresses the truths of Scripture clearly 
and effectively. and with operative power 
on the mind of him who reads the Bible 
as he ought, or who hears an expounder 
of the Bible as he ought. The natural 
man may read with seme degree of in- 
terest and intelligence, aed may hear 
with still greater; but what more pal- 
pable than the wholesale phenomenon 
presented not by individuals only, but 
by the great bulk and body of many a 
congregation, who will listen, and per- 
haps be impressed for a time, and think 
they understand the preacher—nay, per- 
haps, do honestly admire him, and yet 
are not converted by him ? 

This is a matter in which sound ex- 
perience and sound theology are most 
palpably at one. There is no with- 
standing of the fact. ‘The people can 
be brought in full assemblage together, 
and that not merely on the impulse of 
an occasion, but Sabbath after Sabbath 
might the church be filled to the very 
door by a listening, nay, by a delighted 
—nay, by a solemnized, and for a time 
it may be by a deeply impressed, and, 
to all appearance one might think by 
looking at them, a thoroughly subdued 
multitude, over whose willing hearts, 
truth and Scripture have obtained: a 
decisive victory, and the voice of the 
preacher has not only charmed the ears, 


620 SERMON AT THE OPENING OF 
but positively carried the feelings and 
purposes of an obedient people. These 
demonstrations of sin—these offers of a 
large and a free salvation—seem as if 
they had told at the moment of their 
utterance, and that the work of the 
pulpit was going on most prosperously. 
And there is the oratory of the pulpit 
just as there is the oratory of the plat- 
form and of the bar. and of the senate- 
house—and the music of the one may 
regale and elevate just as the other 
does; but when the question comes. 
how is it that we have the blossom of 
so many promises, and withal the sick- 
ly produce of so little fruit—what is it 
that so draws the people together, and 
yet falls short of converting them ?— 
we have no other answer to give, than 
that it is but a day of man’s power, and 
not a day of God’s power. The virtue 
so to expound as to attract may be 
there, but not the virtue so to enlighten 
as to regenerate. The influence from 
above is the want; and while apart 
from any special or extraordinary unc- 
tion of this sort a man might, on the 
strength of nature and of its powers 
alone, become a skilful tradesman, or 
an able man of business, or an accom- 
plished scholar in any of the arts and 
sciences of merely human acquirement, 
so as by dint of their respective lessons 
to become a good agriculturist, a good 
physician, a good astronomer—it is 
precisely because, however versed in 
the lessons of Scripture, if the Spirit of 
God withhold from them His efficacy, 
he does not and cannot become a good 
Christian. 

Let me now found, upon the explana- 
tion we have given, a few brief practi- 
cal instructions both as to how you 
should read the Bible, and, which sub- 
stantially is the same thing, as to how 
you should hear him who from the pul- 
pit expounds and enforces the lessons 
of the Bible. “Take heed how you 
hear.” 

First, then, although the few direc- 
tions I mean to give bear all of them a 
special reference to the doctrine that 
without the Spirit of God we can never 
read of things sacred to any purpose, or 
rather although these directions are ex- 
pressly founded upon that doctrine, yet, 
notwithstanding, it is our very first di- 





| Paul. 





FREE ST. JOHN’S, GLASGOW. [SERM 
rection that you should hear diligently, 
or in other words, that you bring all 
your natural faculties, your attention, 
your intelligence, your memory—all 
the mental powers, in short, which God . 
hath given you—that you press them 
into the service of a close and busy en- 
gagement. whether with the Bible when 
you are holding converse with its pages, 
or with the preacher when you are 
hanging upon his utterance—and this 
for the purpose of understanding aright, 
and being impressed aright, either by 
what you read or by what you hear. 
‘There is nothing in the doctrine of the 
Spirit which supersedes the very pro- 
cesses in the scholarship of Christianity 
which are set a going and are of avail 
in all other scholarship. In operating 
upon man He does not work against 
his nature. but He works according to 
and with his nature. He does not take 
the work of salvation out of the man’s 
own hands, but He strengthens and 
enables and rightly equips the man for 
working out his own salvation. 

It is a most mischievous abuse of our 
doctrine, that because the Spirit does 
all, man has nothing to do, and so 
might fold his arms and forbear the 
exertion of all his faculties, for in truth 
it is by the man’s faculties. and through 
his faculties, that the Spirit does any- 
thing. The effect of His working in us 
is to set us a working. When He in- 
tromits with man, it is not to violate 
the laws of his constitution ; it is not to 
derange the machinery either of his 
moral or intellectual nature, but to set 
that machinery rightly and prosperous- 
ly a goimg. So far from setting aside 
human instrumentality, He has the 
greatest value for it; for example, in 
the case of Lydia He did not Himself 
tell her about the things of salvation, 
He left that to the apostle; neither did 
He force these things on her acceptance 
without any forthputting of her own 
faculties, and yet He did interpose be- 
tween these parties, but it was so to 
open the heart of Lydia that she attend- 
ed to the things that were spoken of 
And so also in the case of Peter 
and Cornelius: He neither took from 
the one his office as a preacher, nor 
from the other his powers and duties as 
a hearer; both were at their right post: 


XXXII. ] 


SERMON AT THE OPENING OF FREE ST. JOHN’S, GLASGOW. 


621 


the former earnestly charging and ex-| come wise unto salvation; 1t 1s a deep- 


plaining. the other as earnestly and dil- 
igently listening, and it was when thus 
severally employed, and not till then. 
that the Holy Ghost fell on all them 
who heard; and accordingly we are 
bidden to take heed to the word of the 
prophecy, and persevere in the exercise 


till the day dawn and the day-star arise 


in our hearts. There never was a more 
glaring perversion, by a sadly misplaced 
and a sadly misunderstood orthodoxy. 
than that because the Spirit does all. 
man is to do nothing. It is a most 
blessed truth that the Spirit is given 
because His aid is indispensable, still 
He is thus given not to prevent our dil- 
igence, but to prompt our diligence. and 
to set it a going; or. if He find you 
already diligent, still He is given not to 
stop that diligence, but to male it effec- 
tual. Whether, then, in the way of 
stirring up the gift that is in you, or for 
the purpose of bringing down that gift 
upon you, in the full view of the Spirit 
and with special reference to His agency 
for giving effect to your attendance on 
the means of grace, it is my first direc- 
tion to one and to all, that in taking 
heed how you hear, you shall hear dili- 
gently. ; 

And then, as a direct preparative for 
the descent of this blessed influence 
from on high, it is my second direc- 
tion—That you shall hear desirously. 
But desirously for what? There is a 
great running after ministers in this 
our day, and this argues a great desire 
of something or other; but we again 
put the question—desire of what? Is 
it to be regaled by the eloquence of the 
preacher ?—is it because you are lured 
by the report of his high and his far- 
sounding popularity ’—is it because you 
want a feast for your imagination, or 
your intellect, or any of your sensibili- 
ties, such as you might have when lis- 
tening to the oratory of the bar, or to 
the oratory of the senate-house, or even 
to the idle declamations of the theatre ? 
That is not a desirousness which will 
help you forward, bat rather prove an 
impediment in the way of your salva- 
tion. What I want is the desirousness 
of the conscience-stricken sinner, earn- 
estly longing to be right with God; it 
is the simple and serious desire to be- 


felt desire for the good of your souls, 
grounded on the deep sense of their ex- 
ceeding worthlessness, and yet of the 
exceeding worth and magnitude of 
their eternity. The men who can min- 
ister best—not to the taste, not to the 
curiosity, not to the passion for excite- 
ment—but who can. minister best to 
the urgent necessities and demands of 
the conscience, these are the men we 
should like to see run after—men. it 
may be, not of gifts, but of graces faith- 
ful stewards of the mysteries of God, 
being themselves men of faith and of 
prayer, who can best feed the people 
with the bread of life, because inclined 
and enabled by their Master to feed 
them with both knowledge and spiritual 
understanding. Let yours be a desire 
for the sincere milk of the word, that 
you may grow thereby—let yours be 
a real hungering and thirsting after 
righteousness, and yours will be the 
desirousness we mean when, in giving 
you our second direction as to how you 
should hear, we tell you to hear desi- 
rously. 

Our third direction is—Hear with 
special application to yourself as far as 


| you are warranted to do so by the lan- 


guage of Scripture—And the language 
of Scripture does warrant such a spe- 
cific application throughout a very wide 
range indeed both of its statements and 
calls. Who, for example, can refuse the 
warrant when the Bible makes use of 
a term so unexcepted, so universal, as 
“every one ?”—*“ Cursed is every one 
who continueth not in all the words of 
the law to do them.” Here is a passage 
which carries a sentence of condemna- 
tion throughout one and all of the hu- 
man family; but this very term is the 
harbinger of other tidings than those of 
doom and of dismay—* Every one that 
asketh receiveth.” Here then is a mes- 
sage of reconciliation to one and all of 
the human family, who, in other ways, 
too, and under other forms of expression, 
are called to cast themselves in depend- 
ence and prayer on that God who sets 
Himself forth as God in Christ, and 
holds out the sceptre of a free and gra 
cious invitation to every sinner withm 
the call of the gospel. Hear as for 
yourself, then, the voice of the preacher, 


622 SERMON AT THE OPENING OF 
and thus to yourself will every utterance 
of his be a word of warning. or a word 
of encouragement, or a word of direc- 
tion; you will read the Bible as if it 
were sent to you individually ; you will 
hear the minister as if he were speaking 
to you individually. It is a simple ad- 
vice that I am now rendering; but just 
as the natural life may be sustained on 
the simple aliment of air and water and 
the plainest of food. so it is on simple’ 
truths that the spiritual life of man is 
sustained ; \and could we only prevail 
on each reader or each hearer to isolate 
himself, and either read as if he—per- 
sonally and particularly—were holding 
converse with God in the Bible, or hear 
as if he in the same personal and par- 
ticular way were holding converse with 
God through the minister, why. on this 
advice, plain and simple as it is, there 
may hinge the good of your eternity, 
and through a blessing from above on 
the means of grace, may it prove the 
very turning-point of your salvation. 

Our fourth direction is—Hear dis- 
trustfully of yourselves, but dependingly 
on the promised grace from on high to 
enlighten and to guide you to all truth. 
it is a grievous obstacle in the way of 
your spiritual illummation that you 
have confidence in your own natural 
powers of discernment ; for the natural 
man discerneth not the things of the 
Spirit, and God, we read, resisteth the 
proud. It is well, on the other hand, 
that you have a deep sense of your own 
natural insufficiency and blindness ; for 
God, we are again told, giveth grace to 
the humble. Hear diligently, then, and 
hear desirously. Hear with special ap- 
plication, and hear withal distrustfully 
of yourselves and dependingly on God, 
and you are in that very attitude of 
waiting upon Him in the way both of 
prescribed and of well-grounded hope 
which bids. the likeliest for the fulfil- 
ment of these precious sayings—He 
who seeketh findeth, and—If any man 
keep my commandments to him will I 
manifest myself. 

Our last direction as to how you 
ought to hear is—That you should hear 
prayerfully. The former directions, in- 
deed, if followed out, will land in this 
our concluding one. To hear distinctly, 
and to hear for himself as for his own 


FREE ST. JOHN’S, GLASGOW. [SERM. 
eternity, and to hear distrustfully of 
one’s self. and to hear dependingly on 
God—these affections of the soul must 
and will find vent in prayer. Prayer 
is the vehicle of interchange between 
earth and heaven—carrying up the de- 
sires of the heart, and fetching down 
the dispensations of grace from on high. 
When the thing asked for is prompted 
by man’s will and agreeable to God’s 
will. there is not one remaining obstacle 
in the way of its fulfilment but the 
want of faith. Now, if you are really 
set on the spiritual and saving under- 
standing of God’s Word, then are your 
will-and God’s will most thoroughly at 
one. Whatever ye ask that is agreea- 
ble to the will of God, ye shall receive. 
Now, we read that it is God’s will that 
all men shall be saved and come to the 
knowledge of the truth ; and we further 
read, that the Scriptures are able to 
make us wise unto salvation through 
the faith that isin Christ Jesus. Are 
you willing, then, to understand the 
Scriptures for the saving of your soul? 
God is abundantly willing for the same 
thing; and when these two wills meet, 
what power in earth or in hell can stay 
the accomplishment of that common ob- 
ject which both are set upon? If you 
are willing for salvation, and God wills 
you to be saved, where is the let or 
hindrance, we would ask, in the way 
of your blissful eternity? It is true 
that you must have some faith, even 
though it were asa grain of mustard 
seed—some such sense of the reality of 
the whole matter as that what you hear 
shall not appear to you as idle tales, 
and you believe them not. 

But then if you had no belief in what 
the Bible tells of the unseen things of 
another world, you would have no desire 
after them—the very existence of the 
desire proves that there is some sort of 
faith within you; and let us not forget 
the encouragement which our Saviour 
gives, when He tells us that this faith, 
even though small as an atom, will 
open a way for you to the mightiest 
achievements. Go then in good heart 
and with confidence to the work, both 
of reading the Bible and of hearing the 
faithful expounder of the Bible. What- 
ever ye ask in the name of Christ, ye 
shall receive; and if you ask for that 





xxx | 


knowledge of Himself which is life 
everlasting He is both able and willing 
to do for you what He did for the disci- 
ples on their way to Emmaus, to open 
your understandings that you might 
understand the Scriptures. The prayer 
of David, and which availed him, is as 
available still in the mouth of every 
earnest inquirer—“ Open Thou mine 
eyes, that I may behold the wondrous 
things contained in thy law.” “ Awake, 
O sinner, and Christ shall give thee 
light.” Awake to the magnitude and 
reality of these things, and give earnest, 
prayerful heed to them, and He will 
translate you out of darkness into the 
marvellous light of the gospel. The 
day will be made to dawn, and the day- 
star to arise in your hearts. 

Let me only add, that besides prayer 
for yourselves, you should make inter- 
cession for others also; and more espe- 
cially on this occasion, that the house 
in which we are now assembled for the 
first time may prove a blessing to the 
families of its hearers—that it may re- 
claim many to habits of church-going, 
and in particular, that those young men 
who are now given to the wanderings 
of Sabbath profanation, may be lured, 
and that from early boyhood, to the 
wholesome practice of regular attend- 
ance on the services of the sanctuary, 


so that that most pleasing of all specta- 


cles—a well filled family pew—may, as 
in the days of our godlier forefathers, 
be again the frequent, nay, the general 
object of our delighted contemplation. 
Above all, let it be our fervent suppli- 
cation, that besides the bodily presence 
of assembled worshippers, there may at 
all times be the presence of a grace and 
an unction from on high, that both 
minister and people may be guided to 
the right exercise of their respective 
functions—the one so taught how to 
speak, and the other how to hear. as to 
have a fruitful issue in the conversion 
of many souls. Oh! that this beau- 
teous temple may prove the harbinger 
of what is goodlier still—the Sabbath 
quiet and the Sabbath sacredness—and 
most precious of all, the love and the 
peace and the holiness and all the gra- 
ces of our coming heaven to those who 
repair toit. Thus might a little heaven 
‘on earth be realized; and long after 


SERMON AT THE OPENING OF FREE ST. JOHN’S, GLASGOW. 


623 


we, as the seniors of the present age, 
are mouldering in our coffins, may the 
prophetic blessing be fulfilled on our 
children’s children—That because of 
this man and that man being born here, 
righteousness has been made to run 
down ‘all our streets, and to descend 
with all the force and fulness of an in- 
creasing river from generation to gener- 
ation. ° 

Before I conclude, let me hope that 
the lesson of how you are to hear has 
so far told that one may read out a very 
few of the most pregnant verses in the 
Bible, short but substantial, as contain- 
ing in them the very marrow of the 
gospel, that one or other of these may 
perhaps take effect on the souls of some 
who are before me. The first I shall 
repeat, as we read in the Life of Colonel 
Gardiner, was the instrument of his 
conversion, letting, as it were, the light 
of heaven into his mind, and so as that 
from that time forward he became a new 
creature in Jesus Christ. Who knows 
what may be the effect of the simple 
reading of a few such verses in your 
hearing now, and more especially if you 
consider that it is now God speaking 
from Himself, and not speaking as in 
the great bulk of a sermon through the 
lips of the minister ?—“ Being justified 
freely by His grace, through the re- 
demption that is in Christ Jesus ; whom 
God hath set forth to be a propitiation 
through faith in His blood, to declare 
His righteousness for the remission of 
sins that are past, through the forbear- 
ance of God; to declare, I say, at this 
time His righteousness; that He might 
be just, and the justifier of Him which 
believeth in Jesus.”—“ God so loved the 
world, that He gave His only begotten » 
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
should not perish, but have everlasting 
life.” God sent not His Son into the 
world to condemn the world, but that 
the world through Him might be 
saved.”—“ As Moses lifted up the ser- 
pent in the wilderness, even so must the 
Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever 
believeth on Him should not perish, but 
have eternal life.” He that spared not 
His own Son, but delivered Him up for 
us all, how shall He not with Him also 
freely give us all things?”—“ He hath 
made Him to be sin for us, who knew 


~ 


624 


no sin, that we might be made the 
righteousness of God in Him.”—* In 
this was manifested the love of God 
towards us, because that God sent His 
only begotten Son into the world, that 
we might live through Him.”—* Here- 
in is love. not that we loved God, but 
that God loved us, and sent His son to 
be the propitiation for our sins.”—* The 
blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleans- 
eth us from all sin.”—-Such, my breth- 
ren, are a few declarations from the 
word of God. Let me close with a 
few invitations grounded upon these :— 
“Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways. 
for why will ye die?”—* Turn ye to 
the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope.”— 
“Come to me, all ye that labour and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 
—‘ Now then we are ambassadors for 
Christ, as though God did beseech you 
by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, 


- THE ARTICLES OF THE COVENANT. 


' [SERM. 


be ye reconciled to God.”——“* Come out 
from among them, and be ye separate, | 
saith the Lord, and touch not the un- 
clean thing; and I will receive you, 
and will be a Father unto you. and ye 
shall be my sons and daughters, saith 
the Lord Almighty.” We then, as 
workers together with Him, beseech 
you also that ye receive not the grace 
of God in vain. For He saith, I have 
heard thee in a time accepted, and in 
the day of salvation have I succored 
thee ; behold, now is the accepted time; 
behold, now is the day of salvation.”— 
“Whosoever will, let him take of the 
water of life freely.” 

May these true sayings of God sink 
deep in your hearts, and may the Spirit 
so press them home that they may be to 
you the bearers of peace with God and 
of life everlasting, and to His name be 
praise. | 


SERMON XXXII. - ’ 


The Articles of the Covenant.* 


“Take hold of my covenant.”—IsataH Ivi. 4, 5. 


We. do not enough contemplate the ; 


Christian salvation in the form of a 
covenant, and yet it is often so repre- 
sented in Scriptyre. From a very early 
period indeed in the history of God’s 
dealings with men, this is set forth as 
the relation in which He and the peo- 
ple who are peculiarly His own are 
made to stand to each other—we mean, 
the relation of parties in a covenant, a 
contract, as it were, having its articles 
of agreement, its mutual stipulations, 
its terms of engagement consented to on 


* On Sabbath, the 25th April, 1847, Dr. Chalmers 
preached at the dispensation of the first sacrament ad- 
ministered in the Church of the West Port. Edinburgh 
—the last sacrament at which he was ever to preside. 
On that occasion the inexpressible gratification was 
afforded to him of seeing within a church of his own 
raising, a goodly number of that very class of the com- 
munity for whose benefit it was erected, and of know- 
ing that at the table of the Lord there sat down that 
’ day about twenty individuals, none of whom for many 
years before—some of whom not once in the course of 
a long lifetime—had commemorated the dying love of 
the Redeemer. Prepared for such occasion, and for 
such an audience, the sermon which follows has this 
additional interest attached to it, that it was the last 
ever written by its author—composed about 2 month 
before his death. 


both sides, and binding upon both. It 
were well if Christians looked more at 
this, and dwelt more on this, as being 
the very condition and state of the mat- 
ter between them and God,—so that 
instead of the vague and loose and gen- 
eral views that take no real or practical 
hold of a man, they were made _pre- 
cisely and distinctly to understand what 
the obligations are which lie upon each 
—what the things are, on the one hand, 
they owe to God; and what, on the 
other hand, the things are which the 
great God of heaven and earth has 
bound Himself to do for them,—so that 
instead of this religion of ours floating 
before the eye of our mind in the form 
of a slight. shapeless, shadowy imagina- 
tion, it shall be clearly apprehended by 
us as an express and definite scheme, 
both of what man is engaged by promise 
to do for God, and of what God is en- 
gaged by promise to do forman. We 
know of nothing better adapted for this 
purpose than td ‘ook at religion in the 


= 


XXXII. } 


light and under the idea of a covenant ; 
and as we have already said that this is 
the light in which it is regarded and often 
spoken of in Scripture, let us present you 
with a few specimens of this. 

Numb. xxv. 12, 13.—* Wherefore say, 
Behold I give unto him my covenant of 
peace: and he shall have it, and his seed 
after him, even the covenant of an ever- | 
lasting priesthood.” This applies, no 
doubt, to a different covenant from that 
which obtains between God and us in 
the present day. Nevertheless I make 
the quotation because ours has the same 
characteristics with the covenant of | 
these verses. Ours, too, is a covenant of 
peace, and the covenant of an ever- 
lasting priesthood. 

Deut. iv. 23, 31.—* Take heed unto 
yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of 
the Lord your God”—“ for the Lord thy 
God isa merciful God: He will not for- 
sake thee, neither destroy thee, nor for- 
get the covenant of thy fathers, which 
He sware unto them.” Neither does 
this refer to our covenant ; but I quote 
it notwithstanding ; for neither must we 
forget our part of the covenant, and God, 
most assuredly, will not forget His; for 
ours, too, has the guarantee both of His 
word and His oath. 

Deut. xxix. 12.—“ Enter into cove- 
nant with the Lord thy God.” This is 
a call on the Israelites, and the same 
call is upon us now, to enter into cove- 
nant with God. 

Deut. xxix. 25.—“ Because they have 
forsaken the covenant of the Lord 
God.” Qurs, too, is a covenant which 
if we forsake, wrath will come upon 
us, as it did upon the Israelites, to the 
uttermost. , 

Deut. xxxi. 20.—‘Then will they 
turn unto other gods, and serve them, 
and provoke me, and break my cove- 
nant.” We, too, may turn away from 
the service of God, and break the cove- 
nant into which we have entered, and 
so incur the fiercest provocation. 

1 Chron. xvi. 15—* Be ye mindful 
always of His covenant; the word which 
He commanded to a thousand genera- 
tions.” Psalm xxv. 14.—“ The secret 
of the Lord is with them that fear 
Him ; and he will show them His cov- 
enant.” Psalm Ixxviii. 37.—“ For their 
heart was not right with Him, neither 


THE ARTICLES OF THE COVENANT. 


625, 


were they steadfast in His covenant.” 
Psalm Ixxxix. 28.—“ My mercy will I 
keep for him for evermore, and my 
covenant shall stand fast with him.” 
Psalm cxi. 5.—“ He hath given meat 
unto them that fear He will ever be 
mindful of His covenant.” Jer. xxxiii, 
20, 21.—* Thus saith the Lord, if ye 
can break my covenant of the day, and 
my covenant of the night, and that there 
should not be day and night in their 
season; then may also my covenant 
be broken with David my servant, that 
he should not have a son to reign upon 
his throne; and with the Levites the 
priests, my ministers.” Jer. xxxiv. 18, 
—‘ And I will give the men that have 
transgressed my covenant, which have 
not performed the words of the covenant 
which they had made before me, when 
they cut the calf in twain, and passed 
between the parts thereof.” Jer. |. 5. 
— ‘They shall ask the way to Zion 
with their faces thitherward, saying, 
Come, and let us join ourselves to the 
Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall 
not be forgotten.” Ezekiel xx. 37.— 
“ And I will cause you to pass under 
the rod, and I will bring you into the 
bond of the covenant.” Mal. ii. 5,— 
‘‘ My covenant was with him of life and 
peace ; and I gave them to him for the 
fear wherewith he feared me, and was 
afraid before my name.” 2 Sam. xxiii. 
5.—* Although my house be not sc 
with God; yet He hath made with me 
an everlasting covenant, ordered in ali 
things, and sure: for this is all my sal- 
vation, and all my desire, although he 
make it not to grow.” Deut. vii. 9-12.— 
“ Know therefore that the Lord thy God, 
He is God, the faithful God, which keep- 
eth covenant and mercy with them that 
love Him and keep His commandments 
to a thousand generations ; and repay- 
eth them that hate Him to their face, 
to destroy them: He will not be slack 
to them that hateth Him, He will repay 
him to his face. Thou shalt therefore 
keep the commandments, and the stat- 
utes, and the judgments, which I cc m- 
mand thee this day, to do therm. Wher te- 
fore it shall come to pass if ye hearlen 
to these judgments, and keep and do 


| them, that the Lord thy God shall keep 


unto thee the covenant and the mercy 
which He sware unto thy fathera.’ 


626 


Psalm Ixxviii. 10.—“ They kept not the 
covenant of God, and refused to walk 
m His law.” Psalm cin. 17, 18.—‘ But 
the mercy of the Lord is from everlast- 
ine to everlasting upon them that fear 
Him, and His righteousness unto chil- 
dren’s children; to such as keep His 
covenant, and to those that remember 
His commandments to do them.” Psalm 
ev. 8.—‘ He hath remembered His cov- 
eénant forever, the word which He com- 
manded to a thousand generations.” 
Such, then, are sundry verses out of 
the many in which the word occurs, and 
stich the various things said in Scrip- 
ture of acovenant. They will convince 
you how frequently, or rather how hab- 
atually it is, that the relationship in 
which God stands to His people, and 
His people to God, is viewed under this 
particular aspect, and, I hope, will pre- 
pare you to listen with all the more at- 
tention and earnestness when we proceed 
to explain what the articles are of that 
covenant which the gospel of Jesus 
Christ has overtured from heaven for 
the acceptance of the world, to which all 
men are called upon to give themselves, 
and within the bond of which every 
true disciple of the Saviour is placed 
and abides perpetually, mindful of the 
part which He has in it to the end of 
his days, till God—never unmindful of 
His part in it—gives effect and fulfil- 


THE ARTICLES OF THE COVENANT. 





[SERM. 


He will show them His covenant. And 
can there be aught of more importance, 
whether in time or eternity, for sinners 
to know, than what that covenant of 
mercy is, and what its particulars, by 
laying hold of which they in fact lay 
hold of life eternal? To show them 
this covenant, just as you would lay 
down and make plain to them the arti- 
cles of a contract, or an agreement, or 
a treaty, pointing out to sinners, in so 
many readable and distinct characters, 
the way of their salvation—oh! that 
you felt, then, as you ought, how mo- 
mentous the subject is of our present 
explanation. What we want to tell you 
of are the things done by God, and the 
things to be done by you in order that 
you might be saved. These, in truth, 
are the things which the Scriptures 
principally teach—even, to adopt the 
words of our Shorter Catechism, “what 
man has to believe concerning God, and 
what duty God requires from him.” 
These might be stated in greater or less 
degrees of fulness and length—either 
very minutely and particularly, or ver 
briefly and generally. We shall take 
the latter way, and speak to you of 
these things as comprised in a covenant 
of four leading articles; and just as in 
any covenant between two parties, cer- 
tain things are laid upon the one party 
and certain things upon the other—so 


ment to its crowning article, by confer- | in this covenant of four articles between 
fing on the faithful all the glories and | God and man, we should be disposed to 


rewards of a blissful eternity. Be as- 
sured of this covenant that it, too, is 
‘ordered in all things and sure—that 
men may forget and fall away from it, 
but that God never will—that it is 
stable as are the laws and ordinances 
‘of nature. nay, more lasting than nature 
itself—that heaven and earth shall pass 
away, but that none of its words and 
none of its articles can fail. 

Let us now propound what the terms 
“or articles of the Christian covenant are. 
They are very distinct, and nothing is 
required but earnest and serious. at- 
tention that you may have a distinct 
understanding of them—and surely 
‘nothing should concern you more than 
‘to get such an understanding of them. 
“Itis stated in one of the verses which 
¥we have just read, as a choice: privilege 
‘eonferred’on those ‘who: fear. God, that 





ee 


regard two of these as standing upon 
God’s side of the covenant..and two of 
them upon man’s side of the covenant. 
The first of these articles, then, might 
be said to come wholly from God. It is 
an overture of mercy to our sinful world, 
or rather to every man who will con- 
sent to enter into the covenant, of which 
this may be regarded as.the first. and 
foremost article. But we are expressing 
it too vaguely and generally when we 
call it:a mere. overture of mercy ;—it 
brings us nearer to the real state of the 
transaction, and sets it forth in the char- 


acter more obviously of an article -or 


covenant, when we represent the sub- 
stance,of the overture as being the for- 
giveness of a debt—and more nearly 
still, that, a Surety has stepped forward 
and undertakes the payment of this 


debt, even! to the Jast farthing of.,it. 


XXXII. ] THE ARTICLES OF THE COVENANT. 327 


Hven an ordinary debt 1s often settled |is, by the surety and the debtor both, 
in this way, upon a certain specific con-| for justice requires that the debtor 
sideration—generally, as in cases of | should be released from the whole obli- 
bankruptcy, on the payment of a com-| gation so soon as the surety has dis- 
position. but sometimes also on the in- | charged it—and accordingly it is a most 
terposal of a surety, who becomes re- | important verse. and lets us. as it were, 
sponsible for the payment of the whole. | to the principle of the Chrstian salva- 
Now such a surety in our case is Je- | tion—that God is not only merciful but 
sus Christ, who laid down His life for a | that He is faithful and just to forgive 
ransom. poured out His blood—-His pre- | us our sins and to cleanse us from all 
cious and peace-speaking blood—-as the | our unrighteousness. 
cost of our redemption, and hence] See then. my brethren, the mighty 
termed the blood of the everlasting cov- | additional strength and security which 
enant. This then is the footing on! it gives to the method of salvation. that 
which God holds out forgiveness to all| it isa salvation by covenant, compassed 
who will but understand well the arti- | about by all the guarantees of an ex- 
cles. He will not grant this forgiveness | press formal ratified agreement between 
on any other footing. It is not on the | two parties mutually bound to each 
footing of general mercy. but on the | other. or under strict reciprocal engage- 
footing of a thus purchased and thus | ments to each other. What a conde- 
propitiated mercy, that He holds out | scension to sinners that God hath thus 
forgiveness. It may have been mercy, } bound Himself. so that they have not 
the mercy of an infinite compassion, | only the mercy of God. but the justice 
not willing that even the chief of sinners | and the truth of God upon their sides, 
should perish—-it may have been God’s | as the pledges and the guarantees of 
so loving the world. which led to the | their salvation. This is His own ex- 
drawing up of acovenant at all. But | press overture pardon—notout of Christ, 
now that the covenant is drawn up it is | for out of Christ He is a consuming fire 
upon its terms. and upon no other, that | —but pardon in Christ. for in Christ He 
the sinner can be taken into acceptance. | is a reconciled and reconciling Father. 
God will not take into acceptance the | And there is pardon on this footing to 
transgressors of His law but in such a| all who will—even the worst and most 
way as that that law shall be magnified | worthless of sinners are welcome to t, 
and made honourable. To make provi- | insomuch that the ambassadors of God 





sion for this is one great end of the | are commissioned to go so far as even 
covenant. Christ bare the penalties of | ta beseech men to enter into reconcilia- 
the law, and so made an end of sin—| tion. This good-will of God in Christ. or 
that is, of all further reckoning with | more particularly, this mercy of God in 
His own people because of sin. agree- | Christ or more particularly still. this for- 
ably to what is said of there being no | giveness through the blood which Christ 
condemnation to those who are in Christ | shed for us on the cross, may be regard- 
Jesus. And Christ fulfilled the de-|ed as the first article of the covenant 
mands of the law, and so brought in an | which we call on you to take hold of 

everlasting righteousness—a righteous-| The first article. then. being a decla- 
ness which is unto all, and upon all | ration or promise of forgiveness through 
who take hold of the covenant. It is| Christ from the Lawgiver, may be 
thus that, under the peculiar economy | viewed as a thing brought down to us 
of the gospel, truth and justice have to| from heaven, and therefore as a thing 
do with the pardon and acceptance of | on God’s part. The second article which 
the sinner as well as mercy. It is just l we now proceed to explain, being a re- 
in God the lawgiver to exact the penal-| sponse to this declaration by those on 
ty of His broken law, but it were not| earth to whom it is addressed, may be 
just to exact it twice over—that is, both | viewed more properly as a thing on 
from the sinner and the sinner’s substi-| man’s part. Say that the declaration is 
tute. It is but justice that the creditor | addressed to exch of two sinners—and 
should be paid his debt. but not just; we have a full warrant for addressing 1% 
that it should be paid him twice—that | to all—but for the present, let us only 


628 


THE ARTICLES OF THE COVENANT. 


[SERM. 


view it as addressed to two, and that the | God take any man into acceptance and 
first of these does not believe it—then | favour who so far affronted Him as to 


his answer to it is, No; but that the | make Him a liar? 


second of them does believe it—and 
then his answer to it is, Ay. Or, con- 
ceive this declaration of forgiveness to 
be made in the form of an offer, and in 
this forrm too—the form of an offer of 
forgiveness, we are fully warranted to 
make it unto all. But say, for the pres- 
ent, that it is made to two, and that the 
first of them, as before, does not believe, 
then he may well be said to refuse the 
offer, so that the thing offered is not 
his; but that the second does believe it, 
and then may it as well be said of him 
that he accepts the offer, and so the 
thing offered is his. Now, this is pre- 
cisely the footing on which these first 
and second articles stand to each other 
in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The man 
who believes not in Christ, or, which is 
the same thing, has not the faith, has 
no part or interest either in its offered 
forgiveness or any other of its, blessings. 
The man, again, who has the faith, ac- 
cording to his faith so is it done unto 
him. This fully accords with one and 
all of the Scripture sayings which relate 
to this subject: “ Believe and ye shall 
be saved.” “Ye are saved by faith.” 
“God sent His only begotten Son into 
the world, that whosoever believeth 
should not perish, but have everlasting 
life.’ “ Christ is a propitiation through 
faith in His blood.” “ Ye are justified 
by faith:” that is, if ye believe ye are 
deait with as righteous persons. ‘“ The 
righteousness of Christ is unto all and 
upon all who believe.” It is by faith 
that you are said to receive Him. The 
“as many as received Him,” are just 
the “as many as believe in His name.” 
They who have faith in the atonement, 
“have received the atonement.” It is 
thus that your faith in Christ constitutes 
your reception of Christ. 

Such is the constitution of the gos- 
pel—such the nature of the covenant 
which we call upon you to take hold of. 
And is it not a right constitution ? 
Could there be any settlement between 
two parties among ourselves, or be- 
tween man and man, if the one did not 
believe what the other said? or could 
man ever come into agreement with 


God if he did not believe God? Would 


But let me tell you 
that God cannot lie; it is impossible for 
Him to lie—so we read in the Bible; 
and let me appeal to yourselves, whether 
the gravity and the sincerity and the 
deep sacredness—the divine character- 
istics of this said Bible, be not in them- 
selves guarantees that none of its say- 
ings will deceive you? And what pos- 
sible interest can the great God of 
heaven and earth have in deceiving 
us? If He were bent on our destruc- 
tion, and really desirous of it, could not 
He with all ease make this out, with- — 
out disgracing Himself by a lie upon 
the subject. But no; He does not - 
want to destroy, but to save you. He 
is at this moment longing after your 
return to friendship with imself and 
this with all the tenderness of a parent 
bereaved of His children. He teils you 
so expressly in many, very many of His 
sayings; and, indeed, it is the sub- 
stance of these sayings which forms 
what I have called the first article of 
the gospel covenant between man and 
God, even that God makes willing offer 
of acceptance to you; and the second 
article is, that you should give God 
credit for this. Only believe in the 
glad tidings of great joy, that God 
makes a free offer of forgiveness to you 
through the blood of His own Son; and 
how indeed can any tidings, however 
good, make you glad and joyful unless 
you believe in them? Receive the 
peace-speaking message of the New 
Testament as a true message; for it is 
only on your holding it to be true that 
it can bring any peace to your bosoms 
—it is only when justified by faith that 
you have peace with God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. God hath laid a glo- 
rious foundation for His covenant to 
begin with. What He wants you now 
to do is to.place your confidence on this 
foundation, yes, and to hold it fast— , 
holding fast your confidence and the re- 
joicing of your hope firm unto the end. 
It is indeed a love-inspiring doctrine, 
that God hath sent His Son into the 
world to be the propitiation for our 
sins; but it is a doctrine which can no 
more inspire love than any other, with- 
out faith in the doctrine; for it is faith 


XXXUI. ] THE ARTICLES OF THE COVENANT. 629 


that worketh by love; and’is only |commencement of a new life—you 
when you know and believe the love | cease to do evil, you learn to do well; 
which God hath to you, that you love | you, in fact, if it be a real work of con- 
Him back again. We love God, says | version, an actual taking hold of the 
the apostle, because He first loved us. | true gospel covenant—you will make a 
Set your hand, then, to this second arti- full dedication of yourselves unto God ; 
‘ele of the covenant—subscribe to the | you cease to be the servants of sin, and 
faithfulness of God—put your seal to ‘become the servants of righteousness, 
God being true—count Him faithful | or which is the same thing, the ser- 
who hath promised, and be persuaded | vants of that God who loveth righteous- 
that what He hath promised He is both | ness and hateth iniquity. Be not de- 
able and willing to perform. ceived then. He who subscribes to 
So much for our second article, which | the covenant, subscribes it in all its 
lies, you will perceive, on man’s side of | articles—yes, and to have the benefits 
the covenant. The third article lies |of the covenant, there must be an 
upon man’s side of the covenant too. | honest and habitual effort to fulfil all 
The second—that we have been just/|its articles. In the language of our 
treating of—relates to man’s faith. | Shorter Catechism, “He turns unto God 
The third, on which we are now to/with full purpose of, and endeavour af- 
offer a very few observations, relates to | ter, the new obedience of the gospel.” 
man’s obedience—the new obedience! [But does not this, it may be thought, 
of the gospel, or, which is the same |just place the sinner where he was 
thing, to man’s service—not service in | again, and bring him back to the old 
the oldness of the letter, but service in| covenant of works? He fell from the 
the newness of the spirit. It is in con-|old obedience of the former dispensa- 
formity to our second article that man | tion, and where is the security that he 
believes. It is in conformity to our/| will not fall from the new obedience 
third article that man obeys. That | which is laid upon him by the present 
both are required and both are indis- | dispensation? We were told, while un- 
pensable, is obvious from. the whole | der the economy of the law, to do this 
tenor of Scripture; and, indeed, both | and live; and still we are told under 
are often comprehended in one sen-|the economy of the gospel, that unless 
tence, sometimes in one clause of a sen-| we do such and such things, we shall 
tence, as making up the substance of | not inherit the kingdom of God. Where, 
Christianity. Our Saviour at the out-| then, is the difference between these ? 
set of His ministry made proclamation | and what the security that in like man- 
to “repent and believe in the gospel.” | ner, as under the covenant of works 
Paul states the subject-matter of his} Adam fell, so under the covenant of 
preaching to lie in repentance towards | grace every one who enters, or takes 
God, and faith in our Lord Jesus | hold of it, may not fall away ? 
Christ. God, in making an overture; ‘This brings us to the statement and 
of reconciliation, says—* Let the wicked | explanation of our last article in the 
forsake his way, and the unrighteous | covenant which we have been calling 
man. his thoughts, and let him return | on you to take hold of There is some- 
unto God, and He will have mercy upon | thing in its very title which explains 
him, and to his God, and He will| the difficulty, and we trust will remove 
abundantly pardon him.” Faith andjit from your minds altogether. Re- 
obedience, my brethren, go together— | member that it is called the covenant 
the one forms part and parcel of the | of grace; you may very well see how it 
covenant as much as the other does: |should be so styled, from its first arti- 
you must yield yourselves up unto|cle, in which the Lord God, merciful 
God, “Teaching all men everywhere,” | and gracious, holds out the offer of a 
says Paul, “to repent and turn unto/|free pardon through Christ, to one and 
God, and to do works meet for repent- all of us; and you may as readily see 
ance.” The religion te which we call|how it preserves this character in its 
you is something more than the com-|second article, in the fulfilment of — 
mencement of a new hove: it is the | which all that man does is to give God 




















630 


THE ARTICLES OF THE COVENANT. 


credit for His offer, to take Him at His| Holy Ghost ; and ae who love God 


word, to do Him the same homage that 
we render to every honest acquaintance 
whom we have in this world—that is, 


that when He speaks we should believe | 


Him. And accordingly it is said of sal- 
vation, that for this very purpose it is of 
faith, even that it might be by grace. 
But then the third article, the obedience 
part of the new covenant, the works of 
the law demanded as before, does not 


this throw it all back again, and bring | 


us just where we were? No, my breth- 
ren, hear our fourth article and you will 
find that it is not as before—for that 
the glorious covenant to which I would 
have you all to join yourselves, as it 
begins with grace, so it ends with 
grace, as it begins on the side of God, 
who binds Himself in the first article 
to bestow pardon on all who ask it. so 
it is completed on the side of God. who, 
by what we shall call our fourth article. 
binds Himself also to bestow the Holy 
Spirit on all who ask it. From first to 
last, it is altogether of grace. 
the commencement to the completion of 
the new man in Christ Jesus grace has 
to do with it. It is grace which lays 
the foundation, and it is grace also 
which raises the superstructure, till, in 
the language of the prophet. the head- 
stone thereof is brought full with shout- 
ings, and we cry, Grace, grace unto it. 
By the third article, which requires 
our obedience, it may be thought or 
feared that the covenant had fallen from 
grace, and so it would, were it not that 
the fourth article brought it up again. 
True it is that by the one article man 
stands engaged to the work of obedi- 
ence ; but it is just as true that by the 
other article God stands engaged to 
make us both willing and able for the 
work. He works in us, and so as to 
set us working: He both makes us like 
the work, and makes us strong for the 
performance of it: He so changes our 
whole nature—gives so different a taste 
and such different affections to our in- 
ner man, that what was before our dis- 
like and our drudgery becomes our de- 
light; and it is now our meat and our 
drink, as of our Saviour before us, to 
do the will of God. He sheds abroad 
in our hearts the love of Hiinself by the 





From | that He shall enable 





love His law. “Oh, how love I Th 

law,” says the Psalmist, “it is my me 

itation all the day.” It is not the same 
as before. It is not the same with the 
new as it was with the old covenant— 
with the cover.ant of grace as with the 
covenant of works. Under the one, the. 
law was given on tables of stone—and 
the whele bent of our inclinations was 
against it, so as to make it a hard and 
a heartless service, under the other. the 
law is graven upon the fleshly tablets 
of our hearts. and our affections are en- 
listed on the side of the new obedience 
of the gospel. If by the first article 
God binds Himself by promise to for- 
give you. by the fourth article He as 
much binds Himseif by promise to 
sanctify you—to uphold all your goings, 
and carry you forward from strength to 
strength in the way of His command- 
ments. It is your part of the covenant 
that henceforward you shall obey, but 
it is as much God’s part of the covenant 
you to obey—and 
one of the most glorious testimonies to 
this effect in the whole of Scripture, 
given first in the Old Testament and 
repeated afterwards by quotation in the 
New, first by the prophet Jeremiah, 
and afterwards by the apostle Paul—a 
most glorious testimony. and delivered, 
too in the terins of a covenant, is the . 
following—‘ Behold, the days come, 
saith the Lord. that I will make a new 
covenant. and this shall be the covenant, 
that I will put my law in their inward 
parts and write it in their hearts and 
will be their God and they shall be my 
people; and [ will forgive their iniqui- 
ty, and I will remember their sin no 
more.” Be not. aid. then, to engage 
in the service—He stands engaged to 
strengthen you for the service. Be not 
afraid to vow unto the Lord, He will 
enable you to pay your vows. Is it 
your heart’s wish to be good ?—it is as 
much His wish to make you good. 
Enter into His covenant; take a fast 
and firm hold and He will neither be 
wanting on His part, nor will He leave 
or let you to fall away from yours and 
so you will be washed and sanctified 
and justified in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, and by the Spirit of your God. » 











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